is I have to quarrel with you before I can get you to give me a
suggestion, and I despise bickering."

"So do I," returned Mr. Pedagog. "Let's give up bickering and turn our
attention to--er--Social Extension, is it?"

"Yes--or Social Expansion," said the Idiot. "Some years ago the world
was startled to hear that in the city of New York there were not more
than four hundred people who were entitled to social position, and, as I
understand it, as time has progressed the number has still further
diminished. Last year the number was only one hundred and fifty, and, as
I read the social news of to-day, not more than twenty-five people are
now beyond all question in the swim. At dinners, balls, functions of all
sorts, you read the names of these same twenty-five over and over again
as having been present. Apparently no others attended--or, if they did,
they were not so indisputably entitled to be present that their names
could be printed in the published accounts. Now all of this shows that
society is dying out, and that if things keep on as they are now going
it will not be many years before we shall become a people without
society, a nation of plebeians."

"Your statement so far is lucid and logical," said Mr. Pedagog, who did
not admire society--so called--and who did not object to the goring of
an ox in which he was not personally interested.

"Well, why is this social contraction going on?" asked the Idiot.
"Clearly because Social Expansion is not an accepted fact. If it were,
society would grow. Why does it not grow? Why are its ranks not
augmented? There is raw material enough. You would like to get into the
swim; so would I. But we don't know how. We read books of etiquette,
but they are far from being complete. I think I make no mistake when I
say they are utterly valueless. They tell us no more than the funny
journal tells us when it says:

"'Never eat pease with a spoon;
Never eat pie with a knife;
Never put salt on a prune;
Never throw crumbs at your wife.'"

They tell most of us what we all knew before. They tell us not to wear
our hats in the house; they tell us all the obvious things, but the
subtleties of how to get into society they do not tell us. The comic
papers give us some idea of how to behave in society. We know from
reading the funny papers that a really swell young man always leans
against a mantel-piece when he is calling; that the swell girl sits on a
comfortable divan with he