offense I shall expect you to remain where you are
during this entire act and devote your energies to amusing me."

"I suppose I must submit, but please talk to me, as I am not bold and
feel sure that your friend is a musical fiend who is quite prepared to
cast furious glances at me should I be audacious enough to speak above a
whisper."

"I see you are an analyst of character."

"Rather more of a synthesist, I imagine. I collect what both enemies and
friends say of an individual and then build his character from those
materials."

"How horrible! I trust you will never try your method on me."

"I have done so already."

"You wretch! What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have heard considerable about you in New York, and that I
dined with six men at the City Club this evening. You were the one
person in Chicago I was most desirous of meeting, so I managed to
collect some most useful materials from which I have built my estimate
of your character."

"I must call that the boldest piece of assurance I ever heard of."

"Why any more so than for me to judge you by my own impressions? My
method is more judicial. As in a court of law, I hear both sides of a
case, and do not permit myself to be biased by personal charms."

"You are a clever pleader. I feel tempted to throw myself on the mercy
of the court and receive its verdict."

"Before the verdict can be given the court must be cleared of reporters;
as that seems impracticable, sentence must be deferred."

"Is it then so horrible? If so, I shall feel tempted to 'jump bail'."

"I think you have nothing to fear; but how did you acquire such a
knowledge of the law?"

"At one time I had a passion for reading accounts of trials, and I even
went with a party to see the Anarchists when they were on trial."

"What a morbid curiosity!"

"Another impertinence."

"If it is so considered, I humbly ask pardon, and meanwhile I move that
the court take a recess which shall be employed in instructing me in the
intricacies of Chicago society."

"I see you want more material with which to construct characters; if so,
we had far better listen to the opera."

"O, bother the opera! It is vulgar to listen to an opera; it shows a
lack of conversational powers. Don't you think so?"

"One can easily see that you came from New York, and, like all New York
men, I suppose you expect to be pampered."

"Of course I expect it, so please tell me about those people in the
opposite b