is also a wide divergence from original
type. Only partly and occasionally an act of homage, the call has
become, broadly speaking, a recognition of exact social equality, as if
the round, dignified American cheese in Grocer Brown's ice-box should
receive and return a call from the round, dignified American cheese in
Grocer Green's ice-box.

And it has become divisible into as many varieties as Mr. Heinz's
pickles.--The _call friendly_ ('Let us go and call on the Smiths: I'd
like to see them'); the _call compulsory_ ('We really _must_ make that
call on the Smiths'); the _call curious_ ('I wonder if it's so, what I
heard yesterday about the Smiths'); the _call convenient_ ('As we
haven't anything better to do this evening, we might call on the
Smiths'); the _call proud_ ('Suppose we get out the new motor, and run
round to the Smiths'); and so forth, and so forth. But, however we look
at it, the call is dependent upon feminine initiative. Our mature
married gentleman, unless he has had already a call to the ministry, has
no call, socially speaking, to make calls. It is his wife's business. As
British soldiers have grimly sung on their way to battle, 'He's there
because he's there, because he's there, because he's there.' But it is
his plain duty to _sit on his chair_. I do not hold it legitimate in him
to 'sneak off' with Mr. Smith--and smoke.

Fortunately, however, once he is there, little else is expected of
him--and nothing that a man should not be willing to do for his wife. A
smile, an attentive manner, the general effect of having combed his hair
and washed behind his ears, a word now and then to show that he is awake
(I am assuming that he controls the tendency to wriggle)--and no more is
needed. He is a lay figure, but not necessarily a lay figure of speech.

Unless a man who is taken to call is of an abnormally lively
conversational habit, quick to think of something that may pass
for a contribution to current thought, and even quicker to get it
out, he had best accept his position as merely decorative, and try
to be as decorative as possible. He should be so quick that the first
words of his sentence have leaped into life before he is himself
aware of what is to come hurrying after them; he may be so slow
that the only sentence he has is still painfully climbing to the
surface long after the proper time for its appearance has passed
and been forgotten. Swallow it, my dear sir, swallow it. Silence,
accompanied