"Did you make it up out your own head, Mr. Bulpert?"
"I did not make it up out of my own head," he said resentfully. "That isn't my line, and well you know it. It was written by a chap your cousin, Clarence Mills, introduced me to."
"Ask him to write it again. It seems to me a stupid piece. The wife's been away for ten years, and the baby is eighteen months old."
"That does require a slight alteration. But what about my rendering of it?"
"Overdone," answered Gertie. "If only you'd stand up and say them quietly, your pieces would go a lot better."
"But I've got to convey the meaning to the ordience."
"Give 'em credit for some intelligence. When the coastguardsman is going out to the wreck, it isn't necessary to wave your arms about like a windmill. You say he's swimming, and that's enough. And if a floating spar knocked him senseless before he got to the wreck, I don't believe he could take them both in his arms and swim back to the shore."
"It says he did in the poetry," contended Bulpert with warmth. "The whole fact of the matter is that you don't in the least know what you're talking about." A sound of voices came from the shop, and Gertie flushed. "Now it's no use your getting hot-tempered about it," he went on. "You speak your mind to me, and I'm entitled to speak my mind to you. What you suffer from is nothing more nor less than sheer ignorance. Imperfect education; that's what the complaint is called."
"Gertie!" A call from the shop.
"Yes, aunt."