"I'll put it in legal form, if you will give me the chance."
"Should I consent to be bored with one Everett Wheeler, a lawyer, specially successful in making bad corporations, something of a politician, not yet fifty, no known vices, easy with women? Is that the question?"
"You flatter me."
"Wait a moment. I want a good man—a blue-ribbon, high-geared saint; or something equally clever of the other kind. Are you good enough?"
"Well, I guess I could pass with the rest."
"That's the trouble. You are just about up to the average of the crowd. You wouldn't steal, and you wouldn't run away with any one's wife. You're too knowing; it wouldn't pay."
"You're right there!"
"And if I get into trouble any time, you're just the man I'd go to. You wouldn't make remarks of a moral nature, and you would know how to squeeze me through a little hole. But you wouldn't do to marry."
"Oh, I don't know—I'd be easy."
"Too tolerant—that's the trouble."