"'Come, Wiggin, no stuff and nonsense. You didn't think I ought to have it, and I know damn well, now that you've won out, you'll get a Skull and Bones to wear, pose in the middle of the photograph for the Banner, and be thoroughly satisfied at our board meeting to sit back and listen while I do the talking.'"
Stover broke into a laugh.
"Brocky, you scandalized him."
"Not at all. He thought I was joking—the last thing that occurs to the grubber is that wit is only a polite way of calling a man an ass."
"Brocky, you're at your best, don't stop."
Brockhurst smiled. It was turning a defeat into a victory. He continued:
"After all, Wiggy is interesting. I'll be revenged. I'll put him in a book some day. He represents a type—the mathematical mind, quantity not quality. He set out for the chairmanship as a man trains for a long-distance run. Do you know the truth? He rose every morning and took a cold shower, fifty swings to the left with the dumb-bell, fifty to the right, ate nothing heavy or starchy for his meals, walked the same distance each afternoon, and worked his two hours each night, hammering out divine literature."
"Oh, I say!" said Dink, a little in doubt.
Brockhurst began to laugh.
"He may have for all I know. Now I'll bury him. He will be eminently successful—I like that word eminently. You see he has no sense of humor, and especially no imagination to hinder him." Brockhurst, in one of his quixotic moods, began to gesture to the stars as he abandoned himself to the delights of his conceit. "Oh, that's a wonderful thing, to have no imagination—the saving of commonplace minds. If Wiggin had an imagination he would never have written a line, he would have perceived the immense distances that separated him from the Olympians. Instead he read Stevenson, Dumas, Kipling, and, unafraid, wrote little Stevenson echoes of Dumas, capsule Kiplings. He'll go out in the world, nothing will frighten him. He will rebel against nothing, for he hasn't an idea. He will choose the woman he needs for his needs, persuade himself that he's in love, and then persuade her. And he'll believe that's a virtuous marriage. He'll belong to the conservative party, the conservative church, and will be a distinguished subordinate, who will stand for tradition, institutions, and will be said to resemble some great man. Then he'll die, and will be pointed to as a great example. Requiescat in pace."