That does not answer me enough.

PHEDRO

Then I am a web binding men and women while they sleep to unexpected
things.

URSUS

Ah, you are a trouble maker?

PHEDRO

No--but I discover what is unusual in the senses of one person and in
the circumstances of another person--Indeed, I have had a splendid
training.

URSUS

Where?

PHEDRO

I have been--but I was almost showing you the colour of the water I
rose from.

URSUS

Well, I have no curiosity.

PHEDRO

That is exactly why one wishes to talk to you. Curiosity in other
people always makes me terribly suspicious. I remember suddenly the
reasons that can make _me_ curious. Now I can talk to you, for one
feels you might not even listen, so you couldn't possibly care enough
to repeat. I was a lackey once.

URSUS

A sordid position.

PHEDRO

[_Becomes slightly frenzied during his speech._]

Yes. A servant is something to absorb the spittle of their
irritability. A hand to arrange the pages of their private diary when
they get stuck together with filth; and above all a presence between
them and the mirror during those grey dawn hours when passing it, they
are likely to see themselves as they are. Ah, then one must be armed
with the eloquence of Cato to reassure these sow's ears that they are
still silk purses. Otherwise the devil has to be bought off in the
morning and with three times the effort. One thing they never count
on, however.

URSUS

And that?

PHEDRO

The effect on another human being of their absurdity and the passion
of malice they rouse from a too long concealed contempt.

URSUS [_looking at him curiously_]

Contempt is the armour of snakes.

PHEDRO [_his face undergoing a change_]

Is it truly, my fine gentleman? Well, my mind has been wandering and
stumbled on a _cul-de-sac_ as usual. Ah, the hope of being
understood--it is almost extinct. However, if I cannot be understood,
I shall, nevertheless, be felt.

URSUS

Well, what do you want of me? I am a philosopher and as such am not
occupied with any sort of facts.

PHEDRO

I suppose not. You philosophers are blind men in dark rooms looking
for the footprints of shadows, are you not?

URSUS [_smiling_]

Not at all. We philosophers have merely learned to practice humour in
the presence of what is commonplace. But what is it you do want of
me?

PHEDRO

What everybody wants--to talk about Gwymplane.

URSUS

Well?

PHEDRO

Have you had this gold