sked, in
view of the fact that you are quite well able to take care of your
matters of that sort yourself and are not in need of any one's help. No,
a volunteer could not make such a venture. It would be too immodest.
Also too gratuitously generous. And a shade too self-sufficient. No,
he could not venture it. It would look too much like anxiety to get in
at a feast where no plate had been provided for him. In fact he could
not get in at all, except by the back way, and with a false key; that is
to say, a pretext--a pretext invented for the occasion by putting into
my mouth words which I did not use, and by wresting sayings of mine from
their plain and true meaning. Would he resort to methods like those to
get in? No; there are no people of that kind. So then I knew for a
certainty that you dictated the Reply yourself. I knew you did it to
save yourself manual labor.

And you had the right, as I have already said and I am content--perfectly
content.

Yet it would have been little trouble to you, and a great kindness to me,
if you had written your Reply all out with your own capable hand.

Because then it would have replied--and that is really what a Reply is
for. Broadly speaking, its function is to refute--as you will easily
concede. That leaves something for the other person to take hold of:
he has a chance to reply to the Reply, he has a chance to refute the
refutation. This would have happened if you had written it out instead
of dictating. Dictating is nearly sure to unconcentrate the dictator's
mind, when he is out of practice, confuse him, and betray him into using
one set of literary rules when he ought to use a quite different set.
Often it betrays him into employing the RULES FOR CONVERSATION BETWEEN A
SHOUTER AND A DEAF PERSON--as in the present case--when he ought to
employ the RULES FOR CONDUCTING DISCUSSION WITH A FAULT-FINDER. The
great foundation-rule and basic principle of discussion with a
fault-finder is relevancy and concentration upon the subject; whereas
the great foundation-rule and basic principle governing conversation
between a shouter and a deaf person is irrelevancy and persistent
desertion of the topic in hand. If I may be allowed to illustrate by
quoting example IV., section from chapter ix. of "Revised Rules for
Conducting Conversation between a Shouter and a Deaf Person," it will
assist us in getting a clear idea of the difference between the two sets
of rules:

Shoute