's one thing easy to talk to, or fit in with, it's a society man or
woman. It's their business to be chatty and pleasant, and they would be
polite and entertaining to a kangaroo, if they found one next them at
dinner. That's what society is for. We are the yolk of the egg, which
holds and blends all the discordant, untrained elements. The oil,
vinegar, salt, and mustard We don't add much flavor to life, but people
wouldn't mix without us."

"I know," said Peter, "if you want to talk petty personalities and
trivialities, that it's easy enough to get through endless hours of
time. But I have other things to do."

"Exactly. But we have a purpose, too. You mustn't think society is all
frivolity. It's one of the hardest working professions."

"And the most brainless."

"No. Don't you see, that society is like any other kind of work, and
that the people who will centre their whole life on it must be the
leaders of it? To you, the spending hours over a new _entree_, or over a
cotillion figure, seems rubbish, but it's the exact equivalent of your
spending hours over who shall be nominated for a certain office. Because
you are willing to do that, you are one of the 'big four.' Because we
are willing to do our task, we differentiate into the 'four hundred.'
You mustn't think society doesn't grind up brain-tissue. But we use so
much in running it, that we don't have enough for other subjects, and so
you think we are stupid. I remember a woman once saying she didn't like
conversazioni, 'because they are really brain-parties, and there is
never enough to go round, and give a second help,' Any way, how can you
expect society to talk anything but society, when men like yourself stay
away from it."

"I don't ask you to talk anything else. But let me keep out of it."

"'He's not the man for Galway'," hummed Watts. "He prefers talking to
'heelers,' and 'b'ys,' and 'toughs,' and other clever, intellectual
men."

"I like to talk to any one who is working with a purpose in life."

"I say, Peter, what do those fellows really say of us?"

"I can best describe it by something Miss De Voe once said. We were at a
dinner together, where there was a Chicago man who became irritated at
one or two bits of ignorance displayed by some of the other guests over
the size and prominence of his abiding place. Finally he said: 'Why,
look here, you people are so ignorant of my city, that you don't even
know how to pronounce its name.' He turned to