"I beg your pardon," I said.
"Have you read Les Avariés?" he asked. "I think that is the finest play that has been produced in Europe since Scribe."
"Do you?" I said politely.
"Yes, you see our students are greatly interested in sociological questions."
It is my misfortune that I am not, and so as deftly as I could I led the conversation to Chinese philosophy which I was desultorily reading. I mentioned Chuang-Tzu. The professor's jaw fell.
"He lived a very long time ago," he said, perplexed.
"So did Aristotle," I murmured pleasantly.
"I have never studied the philosophers," he said, "but of course we have at our university a professor of Chinese philosophy and if you are interested in that I will ask him to come and call on you."
It is useless to argue with a pedagogue, as the Spirit of the Ocean (somewhat portentously to my mind) remarked to the Spirit of the River and I resigned myself to discuss the drama. My professor was interested in its technique and indeed was preparing a course of lectures on the subject, which he seemed to think both complicated and abstruse. He flattered me by asking me what were the secrets of the craft.
"I know only two," I answered. "One is to have common-sense and the other is to stick to the point."