on of harmonic playing--mere squibs
and firecrackers and rockets, the veriest fireworks. Ah, it's small
wonder the world has so few artists when it demands so little." And
Teevan sighed significantly.

Ewing was chilled by this avoidance of himself, though he could not yet
believe it intentional.

"I haven't given up," he declared, by way of reminding Teevan. "You
shall see that I'm stubborn."

Teevan affected to study a group of diners at a neighboring table as he
replied:

"Oh, yes, I gather that you left the school when you found it
difficult."

"But you see----"

"This soup is worth while, really. Soup is surprisingly difficult. Yet
the world believes perfect soups to be plentiful." He sighed again. "It
merely shows the vitality of error."

Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at this attack, or rather
at this lack of attack. He had been prepared to have his friend exhibit
doubt, disbelief, chagrin--anything that would still show an
undiminished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from Teevan's
speech. He talked at large as Ewing had heard him talk to roomfuls of
people.

"Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie about soup or
souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie away. It's clutched with a
bulldog jaw. Say good soup is common--God-fearing Christians echo the
lie. Say Berkeley denies the existence of matter, and men with Berkeley
at hand repeat you. Say Locke denies all knowledge except through the
medium of the senses, and students of Locke pass on the absurdity. Bacon
was by no means the first thinker to proclaim the deficiencies of the
Aristotelian philosophy--a system already in disrepute when he wrote the
'Instauration.' Yet in our crude yearning for concreteness, for specific
idols, we laud him as the father of the inductive philosophy--as if
induction weren't an inevitable process in any mind grown beyond
primitive concepts. Gad! I had a dog once that used induction a dozen
times a day, and he'd never so much as heard of Bacon."

Thus he wandered afield during the dinner, with airs of a bored but
conscientious host, and Ewing fell lower of heart at each of his
periods. He hoped for his chance when the coffee came, but Teevan gave
him no opening. The brandy sufficed for his text. We were not
brandy-drinkers, unhappily enough--"the wholesomest of all spirits, the
distilled essence of cognac grapes, the magic cup of Circe, 'her Orient
liquor in a crystal glass'--and we k