"Yes," returned the Idiot. "Bachelor of Society—a degree which, once earned, should entitle one to recognition as a member of the upper ten anywhere in Christendom."
"It is superb!" cried Mr. Pedagog, enthusiastically.
"Yes," said the Idiot. "At ten cents a function it would beat University Extension out of sight, and, further, it would preserve society. If we lose society we lose caste, and, worse than all, our funny men would have to go out of business, for there would be no fads or Willieboys left to ridicule."
VII
A Beggar's Hand-book
"Mr. Idiot," said the Poet one morning, as the waffles were served, "you are an inventive genius. Why don't you invent an easy way to make a fortune? The trouble with most methods of making money is that they involve too much labor."
"I have thought of that," said the Idiot. "And yet the great fortunes have been made in a way which involved very little labor, comparatively speaking. You, for instance, probably work harder over a yard of poetry that brings you in ten dollars than any of our great railroad magnates have over a mile of railroad which has brought them in a million."
"Which simply proves that it is ideas that count rather than labor," said the Poet.
"Not exactly," said the Idiot. "If you put a hundred ideas into a quatrain you will get less money for it than you would for a two-volume epic in which you have possibly only half an idea. It isn't idea so much as nerve that counts. The man who builds railroads doesn't advance any particular idea, but he shows lots of nerve, and it is nerve that makes wealth. I believe that if you literary men would show more nerve force and spare the public the infliction of what you call your ideas, you would make more money."
"How would you show nerve in writing?" queried the Bibliomaniac.