“Servants, baby-food, floor-polish, and godets,” I repeated, somewhat sheepishly, she took it so coolly.
“Very well,” said Xanthippe, with a note of amusement in her manipulation of the keys. “If those are your subjects, let us discuss them. I am surprised to find an able-bodied man like yourself bothering with such problems, but I'll help you out of your difficulties if I can. No needy man shall ever say that I ignored his cry for help. What do you want to know about baby-food?”
This turning of the tables nonplussed me, and I didn't really know what to say, and so wisely said nothing, and the machine grew sharp in its clicking.
“You men!” it cried. “You don't know how fearfully shallow you are. I can see through you in a minute.”
“Well,” I said, modestly, “I suppose you can.” Then calling my feeble wit to my rescue, I added, “It's only natural, since I've made a spectacle of myself.”
“Not you!” cried Xanthippe. “You haven't even made a monocle of yourself.”
And here we both laughed, and the ice was broken.
“What has become of Boswell?” I asked.
“He's been sent to the ovens for ten days for libelling Shakespeare and Adam and Noah and old Jonah,” replied Xanthippe. “He printed an article alleged to have been written by Baron Munchausen, in which those four gentlemen were held up to ridicule and libelled grossly.”
“And Munchausen?” I cried.