Coffee and Repartee | Page 3

the Idiot. "But," he added, with a glance at the amount of the bill, "are you related to Governor McKinley, Mrs. Smithers?"
"I am not," she returned, sharply. "My mother was a Partington."
"I only asked," said the Idiot, apologetically, "because I am very much interested in the subject of heredity, and you may not know it, but you and he have each a marked tendency towards high-tariff bills."
And before Mrs. Smithers could think of anything to say, the Idiot was on his way down town to help his employer lose money on Wall Street.

II
"Do you know, I sometimes think--" began the Idiot, opening and shutting the silver cover of his watch several times with a snap, with the probable, and not altogether laudable, purpose of calling his landlady's attention to the fact--of which she was already painfully aware--that breakfast was fifteen minutes late.
"Do you, really?" interrupted the School-master, looking up from his book with an air of mock surprise. "I am sure I never should have suspected it."
"Indeed?" returned the Idiot, undisturbed by this reflection upon his intellect. "I don't really know whether that is due to your generally unsuspicious nature, or to your shortcomings as a mind-reader."
"There are some minds," put in the landlady at this point, "that are so small that it would certainly ruin the eyes to read them."
"I have seen many such," observed the Idiot, suavely. "Even our friend the Bibliomaniac at times has seemed to me to be very absent-minded. And that reminds me, Doctor," he continued, addressing himself to the medical boarder. "What is the cause of absent-mindedness?"
"That," returned the Doctor, ponderously, "is a very large question. Absent-mindedness, generally speaking, is the result of the projection of the intellect into surroundings other than those which for want of a better term I might call the corporeally immediate."
"So I have understood," said the Idiot, approvingly. "And is absent-mindedness acquired or inherent?"
Here the Idiot appropriated the roll of his neighbor.
"That depends largely upon the case," replied the Doctor, nervously. "Some are born absent-minded, some achieve absent-mindedness, and some have absent-mindedness thrust upon them."
"As illustrations of which we might take, for instance, I suppose," said the Idiot, "the born idiot, the borrower, and the man who is knocked silly by the pole of a truck on Broadway."
"Precisely," replied the Doctor, glad to get out of the discussion so easily. He was a very young doctor, and not always sure of himself.
"Or," put in the School-master, "to condense our illustrations, if the Idiot would kindly go out upon Broadway and encounter the truck, we should find the three combined in him."
The landlady here laughed quite heartily, and handed the School-master an extra strong cup of coffee.
"There is a great deal in what you say," said the Idiot, without a tremor. "There are very few scientific phenomena that cannot be demonstrated in one way or another by my poor self. It is the exception always that proves the rule, and in my case you find a consistent converse exemplification of all three branches of absent-mindedness."
"He talks well," said the Bibliomaniac, sotto voce, to the Minister.
"Yes, especially when he gets hold of large words. I really believe he reads," replied Mr. Whitechoker.
[Illustration: "'WHAT ARE THE FIRST SYMPTOMS OF INSANITY?'"]
"I know he does," said the School-master, who had overheard. "I saw him reading Webster's Dictionary last night. I have noticed, however, that generally his vocabulary is largely confined to words that come between the letters A and F, which shows that as yet he has not dipped very deeply into the book."
"What are you murmuring about?" queried the Idiot, noting the lowered tone of those on the other side of the table.
"We were conversing--ahem! about--" began the Minister, with a despairing glance at the Bibliomaniac.
"Let me say it," interrupted the Bibliomaniac. "You aren't used to prevarication, and that is what is demanded at this time. We were talking about--ah--about--er--"
"Tut! tut!" ejaculated the School-master. "We were only saying we thought the--er--the--that the--"
"What are the first symptoms of insanity, Doctor?" observed the Idiot, with a look of wonder at the three shuffling boarders opposite him, and turning anxiously to the physician.
"I wish you wouldn't talk shop," retorted the Doctor, angrily. Insanity was one of his weak points.
"It's a beastly habit," said the School-master, much relieved at this turn of the conversation.
"Well, perhaps you are right," returned the Idiot. "People do, as a rule, prefer to talk of things they know something about, and I don't blame you, Doctor, for wanting to keep out of a medical discussion. I only asked my last question because the behavior of the Bibliomaniac and Mr. Whitechoker and the School-master for some time past has worried me, and I didn't know but what you might work up a nice little practice among us. It might not pay, but you'd