“He does; he doesn’t. He’s at work on that book of his, all the time.”
“Oh, I don’t call that work.”
“He makes it work. Even if he went merely to literature for his material, his Contributions to the Annals of Heroism might be a serious labor; but he goes to life for it. He hunts up his heroes in the streets and in the back alleys, in domestic service, in the newspaper offices, in bank parlors, and even in the pulpits: he has a most catholic taste in heroism; he spares neither age, sex, nor condition. I suppose it isn’t an idle thing to instruct the world that all the highest dreams of self-devotion and courage and patience are daily realized in our blackguard metropolis: we leave culture and refinement to Boston. And if it were so, it must be allowed that even with a futile object in view, Easton does some incidental good: he half supports about half of his heroes, and he’s always wasting his time and substance in good deeds.”
“Well, well,” said Mrs. Gilbert, “I can’t admire such an eccentric, and you needn’t ask me.”
“I don’t. But this is just what shows the hopeless middlingness of your character. If you were a very much better or a very much worse woman, you would admire him immensely.”
“Oh, don’t talk to me, William! He’s a man’s man, and that’s the end of him. Why didn’t you bring him with you to-night?”
“He wouldn’t come.”
“Did you tell him there were fifteen ladies in the house?”
“It was that very stroke of logic which seemed to settle his mind about it. He is a man’s man, you’re right; he’s shyer of your admirable sex than any country boy; it’s no use to tell him you’re not so dangerous as you look. But even if he hadn’t been afraid of your ladies, the force of my argument might have been weakened by the fact of the twenty-five at the hotel. What are the superior inducements of your fifteen?”
“They are all very nice.”