of his Penguinity.

Then there is David. David is penguinacious by fits and starts, not
wholly to be depended on, sometimes needing himself to be cheered with
the Penguinity of others, but, when the mood is on him, softly,
fantastically ridiculous, like the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll, a
sort of _Alice in Wonderland_ person. I should not hesitate to
recommend him to Dr. Crothers as a neighbor; indeed I suspect the good
doctor is almost such a man himself,--too gentle, too fantastic in
humor to suggest, however remotely, a "live wire," and yet how far
from being stupid! David's mind works so unexpectedly. You are quite
sure you know what he is going to say, and yet he never says it,
giving his remark a verbal twist which calls up some absurdly
impossible picture, and evokes, not a laugh, but a deep, satisfying
smile. There is something quaint and refreshing about such a mind as
David's. It does not so much restore one's animal spirits, or one's
good nature, as it rejuvenates the springs of fancy, brings back the
whimsical imagination of childhood. David will people a room with his
airy conceits, as Mr. Barrie peopled Kensington Gardens with Peter Pan
and his crew; and it is as impossible not to forget anger and care,
not to feel sweeter and fresher, for David's jests, as for _The Little
White Bird_. Only a Penguinity like David's is subtle, a little
unworldly, and, like most gracious gifts, fragile. There are days when
the world is too much for David, when his jests are silent and his
conceits do not assemble. Then it is that he in turn needs the good
cheer of another's Penguinity, and it is then my happy privilege to
reward him by hunting up Bobbie Barton, if I can, and joining them at
a dinner party. Bobbie's Penguinity is based on an inexhaustible fount
of animal spirits, he is never anything but a Penguin. He usually has
David put to rights by the roast.

The other day, while Bobbie was running on in his ridiculous fashion,
in an idiom all his own that even Mr. Ade could not hope to rival,
telling, I believe, about some escapade of his at Asbury Park, where
he had "put the police force of two men and three niggers out of
business" by asking the innocent and unsuspecting chief the difference
between a man who had seen Niagara Falls, and one who hadn't, and a
ham sandwich, I fell to musing on Ruskin's unhappy lot, who did not
know Bobbie, nor apparently anybody like him. Poor Ruskin! After all,
there is more pat