But Belter, the jester, laughed a terrifying laugh and sauntered into the open door of the restaurant which they had walked a mile or two to find.
"It's a low pub," he remarked, "and suitable to my mind." They seated themselves at a cherry table. One or two newspaper men nodded to Belter. A confidence man, whispering to a painted mulatto girl, turned to scrutinize him; a ruffianly bar-keeper saluted him cordially.
There was a grill glowing beyond the bar. A waiter, chewing a tooth-pick, came up and stood leaning on their table with both hairy hands spread flat on the polished top.
"Well, gents, what is it?" he asked hoarsely.
They gave their order. Then Belter, leaning forward and planting both elbows on the table, said in a low voice:
"They call me a caricaturist, but, by God, Cleland, I'm a realist! I've learned more about women by caricaturing them than I ever read in their smooth countenances. They are caricatures, in their secret souls—every one of them; and when I exaggerate a weak point and ignore everything but the essential character lines and contours, by jingo, Cleland, I've discovered 'em—exposed 'em as they really are!—distorted caricatures of human beings."
Cleland disagreed with him, gloomily, amazed at his bitterness.
"No," said Belter, "if you tell the mere truth about them they're a nuisance! We don't understand 'em. Why? There's very little to understand and that's all on the surface as plain as the nose on your face!—too plain for us to notice. And you writers explore and dissect 'em, seeking deeps where there are shallows, mysteries where there are facts, subtleties where everything is obvious. They haven't much mind, they have few traits because they have precious little character. They are not like humans; they resemble Fabre's insects—strange, incomprehensible Martians, doing things not from intelligence, not from reason, impulse, desire, but merely from an inherited instinct that apes intelligence, that parodies passion."
"What have they done to you, Harry?"
"Nothing, in years.... Because I won't let 'em. But the spectacle of the world suddenly crawling with women, all swarming restlessly over the face of the globe, not knowing why or whither—it appalls me, Jim. And we men continue flinging at them everything we can think of to stop them, quiet them, and keep them still—personal liberty, franchise, political opportunity, professional and industrial chances—and still they twist and wriggle and squirm and swarm over everything restlessly, slowly becoming denatured, unsexed, more sterile, more selfish, insolent, intolerable every day. They are the universal nuisance of the age; they are slowly smothering us as shifting dunes threaten the fertile plain——"