"Ah, your old failing again," said Reding; "a craving after views. Now, what I like in Carlton, is that repose of his;—always saying enough, never too much; never boring you, never taxing you; always practical, never in the clouds. Save me from a viewy man; I could not live with him for a week, present company always excepted."
"Now, considering how hard I have read, and how little I have talked this year past, that is hard on me," said Sheffield. "Did not I go to be one of old Thruston's sixteen pupils, last Long? He gave us capital feeds, smoked with us, and coached us in Ethics and Agamemnon. He knows his books by heart, can repeat his plays backwards, and weighs out his Aristotle by grains and pennyweights; but, for generalizations, ideas, poetry, oh, it was desolation—it was a darkness which could be felt!"
"And you stayed there just six weeks out of four months, Sheffield," answered Reding.
Carlton had now joined them, and, after introductory greetings on both sides, he too threw himself upon the turf. Sheffield said: "Reding and I were disputing just now whether Nicias was a party man."
"Of course you first defined your terms," said Carlton.
"Well," said Sheffield, "I mean by a party man, one who not only belongs to a party, but who has the animus of party. Nicias did not make a party, he found one made. He found himself at the head of it; he was no more a party man than a prince who was born the head of his state."
"I should agree with you," said Carlton; "but still I should like to know what a party is, and what a party man."
"A party," said Sheffield, "is merely an extra-constitutional or extra-legal body."
"Party action," said Charles, "is the exertion of influence instead of law."
"But supposing, Reding, there is no law existing in the quarter where influence exerts itself?" asked Carlton.