.. Keep countenance.

W. Keep... British Museum.

C. Know whom talk... absurdities.

W. Never talk absurdities without

"What is it?" cried Drummond, flinging the paper down in a sort of final
fury.

"What is it?" replied Grant, his voice rising into a kind of splendid
chant. "What is it? It is a great new profession. A great new trade. A
trifle immoral, I admit, but still great, like piracy."

"A new profession!" said the young man with the red moustache vaguely;
"a new trade!"

"A new trade," repeated Grant, with a strange exultation, "a new
profession! What a pity it is immoral."

"But what the deuce is it?" cried Drummond and I in a breath of
blasphemy.

"It is," said Grant calmly, "the great new trade of the Organizer of
Repartee. This fat old gentleman lying on the ground strikes you, as I
have no doubt, as very stupid and very rich. Let me clear his character.
He is, like ourselves, very clever and very poor. He is also not really
at all fat; all that is stuffing. He is not particularly old, and
his name is not Cholmondeliegh. He is a swindler, and a swindler of
a perfectly delightful and novel kind. He hires himself out at
dinner-parties to lead up to other people's repartees. According to a
preconcerted scheme (which you may find on that piece of paper), he says
the stupid things he has arranged for himself, and his client says the
clever things arranged for him. In short, he allows himself to be scored
off for a guinea a night."

"And this fellow Wimpole--" began Drummond with indignation.

"This fellow Wimpole," said Basil Grant, smiling, "will not be an
intellectual rival in the future. He had some fine things, elegance and
silvered hair, and so on. But the intellect is with our friend on the
floor."

"That fellow," cried Drummond furiously, "that fellow ought to be in
gaol."

"Not at all," said Basil indulgently; "he ought to be in the Club of
Queer Trades."

Chapter 3. The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit

The revolt of Matter against Man (which I believe to exist) has now been
reduced to a singular condition. It is the small things rather than
the large things which make war against us and, I may add, beat us. The
bones of the last mammoth have long ago decayed, a mighty wreck; the
tempests no longer devour our navies, nor the mountains with hearts
of fire heap hell over our cities. But we are engaged in a bitter and
eternal war with small things; chiefly with microbes and with c