I was talkin' it over with Swifty Joe, who, havin' been born in County Kerry and brought up in South Brooklyn, is sore on foreigners of all kinds. Course, he sides hearty with Mr. Hubbard.
"Ahr-r-r-chee!" says he. "That Hamand boob, stickin' up for the Waps and Guineas, he—he's a nut, a last year's nut!"
"Hardly that, Swifty," says I. "A next year's nut, I should say."
CHAPTER XIV
CATCHING UP WITH GERALD
"It seemed so absurdly simple at first too," says J. Bayard Steele, tappin' one of his pearl-gray spats with his walkin' stick. "But now—well, the more I see of this Gerald Webb, the less I understand."
"Then you're comin' on," says I. "In time you'll get wise to the fact that everybody's that way,—no two alike and every last one of us neither all this nor all that, but constructed complicated, with a surprise package done up in each one."
"Ah! Some of your homespun philosophy, eh?" says J. Bayard. "Interesting perhaps, but inaccurate—quite! The fellow is not at all difficult to read: it's what we ought to do for him that is puzzling."