"Impossible," said the Idiot. "She pitied him. She knew that if she didn't marry him, and take charge of him, another woman would, and that the chances were ten to one that the other woman wouldn't do the thing right and that Saphead's life would be ruined forever."
"But you say she is happy," persisted the Lawyer.
"Certainly she is," said the Idiot. "Because her life is an eternal sacrifice to Saphead's needs, and if there is a luxury in this mundane sphere that woman essentially craves it is the luxury of sacrifice. There is something fanatic about it. Sallie Wiggins voluntarily turned her back on seven men that I know of, one of whom is a Governor of his state; two of whom are now in Congress; one of whom is a judge of a state court; two of whom have become millionaire merchants; and the seventh of whom is to-day, probably, the most brilliant ornament of the penitentiary. Everyone of 'em turned down for Saphead, a man who parted his hair in the middle, couldn't earn seven dollars a century on his wits, is destined to remain hopelessly nothing, keeps her busy sewing buttons on his clothes, and to save his life couldn't tell the difference between Matthew Arnold and an automobile, and yet you tell me that women don't care for idiots."
"Miss Wiggins—or Mrs. Saphead, to be more precise," said Mr. Brief, "is only one instance."
"Well—there was Margaret Perkins—same town—same experience," said the Idiot. "Lovely girl—sought after by everybody—proposed to her myself five times—President of the Mental Culture Society of Baggville—graduate of Smythe—woman-member of Board of Education—Director of Young Girls' Institute—danced like a dream—had a sense of humor—laughed at my jokes—and married—what?"
"Well, what?" demanded the Lawyer.
"Prof. Omega Nit Zero, teacher of Cingalese in the University of Oklawaha, founded by a millionaire from Geneseo, New Jersey, who owned a hotel on the Oklawaha River that didn't pay, and hoped to brace up a bad investment by the establishment in the vicinity of a centre of culture. Prof. Zero receives ten dollars a week, and with his wife and three pupils constitutes the whole faculty, board of trustees, janitor, and student body of the University," said the Idiot. "Mrs. Zero dresses on nothing a year; cares for her five children on the same basis, and is happy. They are the principal patrons of the Oklawaha Hotel."
"Well—if she is happy?" said the Bibliomaniac. "What business is it of anybody else? I think if Prof. Zero makes her happy he's the right kind of a man."
"You couldn't make Zero the right kind of a man," said the Idiot. "He isn't built that way. He wears men's clothes and he has sweet manners, and a dulcet voice, and the learning of the serpent; but when it comes to manhood he has the initiative of the turtle, lacking the cash value of the terrapin, or the turtle's mock brother; he wears a beard, but it is the beard of the bearded lady who up-to-date appears to be a useless appanage of the strenuous life; and when you try to get at his Americanism, if he has any, he flies off into stilted periods having to do with the superior virtues of the Cingalese. And Margaret Perkins that was hangs on his utterances as though he were a very archangel."
"Good," ejaculated Mr. Brief. "I am glad to hear that she is happy."