ou are a failure as
a man because you have no relation at all with man's life. You aspire to
teach and lead human beings, and you have not the least idea what a
human being is, and not the slightest wish to find out. All around you
are men, live men of flesh and blood, who are moving the world, and you,
whipping out your infinitesimal measuring-rod, dismiss them as inferior
cattle who know nothing of text-book science. Here is a real and living
world, and you roll through it like a billiard-ball. And all because you
make the fatal error of mistaking a sorry handful of mummies for the
universe."

"It is a curious coincidence," said Queed, with great but deceptive
mildness, "that Fifi said much the same thing to me, though in quite a
different way, this afternoon."

"She told me. But Fifi was not the first. You had the same advice from
your father two months ago."

"My father?"

"You have not forgotten his letter that you showed me in your office one
afternoon?"

It seemed that he had; but he had it in his pocket, as it chanced, and
dug it out, soiled and frayed from long confinement. Stooping forward to
introduce it into the penumbra of lamplight, he read over the
detective-story message: "_Make friends: mingle with people and learn to
like them. This is the earnest injunction of Your father_."

"You complain of your father's treatment of you," said Sharlee, "but he
offered you a liberal education there, and you declined to take it."

She glanced at the clock, turned about to the table and picked up her
beautiful bouquet. A pair of long bodkins with lavender glass heads were
waiting, it appeared; she proceeded to pin on her flowers, adjusting
them with careful attention; and rising, again reviewed herself in the
mantel-mirror. Then she sat down once more, and calmly said:

"As you are a failure as an editorial writer and as a man, so you are a
failure as a sociologist ..."

It was the last straw, the crowning blasphemy. She hardly expected him
to endure it, and he did not; she was glad to have it so. But the
extreme mildness with which he interrupted her almost unnerved her, so
confidently had she braced herself for violence.

"Do you mind if we omit that? I think I have heard enough about my
failures for one night."

He had risen, but stood, for a wonder, irresolute. It was too evident
that he did not know what to do next. Presently, having nowhere else to
go, he walked over to the mantel-shelf and leant h