“Oh, that is very curious,” said the psychologist. “We talk of generalizing, but is there any such thing? Aren’t we always striving from one concrete to another, and isn’t what we call generalizing merely a process of finding our way?”
“I see what you mean,” said the artist, expressing in that familiar formula the state of the man who hopes to know what the other man means.
“That’s what I say,” Rulledge put in. “You’ve got something up your sleeve. What is it?”
Wanhope struck the little bell on the table before him, but, without waiting for a response, he intercepted a waiter who was passing with a coffee-pot, and asked, “Oh, couldn’t you give me some of that?”
The man filled his cup for him, and after Wanhope put in the sugar and lifted it to his lips, Rulledge said, with his impetuous business air, “It’s easy to see what Wanhope does his high thinking on.”
“Yes,” the psychologist admitted, “coffee is an inspiration. But you can overdo an inspiration. It would be interesting to know whether there hasn’t been a change in the quality of thought since the use of such stimulants came in--whether it hasn’t been subtilized--”
“Was that what you were going to say?” demanded Rulledge, relentlessly. “Come, we’ve got no time to throw away!”
Everybody laughed.
“_You_ haven’t, anyway,” said I.
“Well, none of his own,” Minver admitted for the idler.