'What do you think of the International Situation?' asked that foreign Countess, with her foreign, fascinating smile.
Was she a Spy? I felt I must be careful.
'What do I think?' I evasively echoed; and then, carried away by the profound and melancholy interest of this question, 'Think?' I queried, 'do I ever really think? Is there anything inside my head but cotton-wool? How can I call myself a Thinker? What am I anyhow?' I pursued the sad inquiry: 'A noodle, a pigwidgeon, a ninnyhammer, a bubble on the wave, a leaf in the wind, Madame!'
DINING OUT
When I think of Etiquette and Funerals; when I consider the euphemisms and rites and conventions and various costumes with which we invest the acts of our animal existence; when I bear in mind how elegantly we eat our victuals, and remember the series of ablutions and preparations and salutations and exclamations and manipulations I went through when I dined out last evening, I reflect what creatures we are of ceremony; how elaborate, how pompous and polite a simian Species.