“Pah!” ejaculated Mr. Brief. “You place the bar and domestic service on the same plane of importance, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” said the Idiot. “Shouldn’t think of doing so. Twenty people need housemaids, where one requires a lawyer; therefore the domestic is the more important of the two.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Brief, with an angry laugh. “Intellectual qualifications, I suppose, go for nothing in the matter.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said the Idiot. “I guess, however, that there are more housemaids earning a living to-day than lawyers—and, besides—oh, well, never mind—What’s the use? I don’t wish to quarrel about it.”
“Go on—don’t mind me—I’m really interested to know what further you can say,” snapped Mr. Brief. “Besides—what?”
“Only this, that when it comes to the intellectuals—Well, really, Mr. Brief,” asked the Idiot, “really now, did you ever hear of anybody going to an intelligence office for a lawyer?”
Mr. Brief’s reply was not inaudible, for just at that moment he swallowed his coffee the wrong way, and in the effort to bring him to, the thread of the argument snapped, and up to the hour of going to press had not been tied together again.
XI
THE GENTLE ART OF BOOSTING
THE Idiot was very late at breakfast—so extremely late, in fact, that some apprehension was expressed by his fellow-boarders as to the state of his health.