"Why don't you make a novel about it?" inquired O'Hara.
"Because, you dub! I don't use real episodes or living people!" roared Westguard; "newspapers and a few chumps to the contrary!"
"So!—so-o!" said O'Hara, soothingly—"whoa—steady, boy!" And he pretended to rub down Westguard, hissing the while as do grooms when currying.
"Anybody who tells the truth about social conditions in any section of human society is always regarded as a liar," said Westguard. "Not that I have any desire to do it, but if I should ever write a novel dealing with social conditions in any fashionable set, I'd be disbelieved."
"You would be if you devoted your attention to fashionable scandals only," said Quarren.
"Why? Aren't there plenty of scandalous——"
"Plenty. But no more than in any other set or coterie; not as many as there are among more ignorant people. Virtue far outbalances vice among us: a novel, properly proportioned, ought to show that. If it doesn't, it's misleading."
"Supposing," said Westguard, "that I were indecent enough to show up my aunt in fiction. Nobody would believe her possible."
"I sometimes doubt her even now," observed O'Hara, grinning.
Quarren said: "Count up the unpleasant characters in your own social vicinity, Karl—just to prove to yourself that there are really very few."