Coffee and Repartee | Page 3

Smithers, that worthy woman was speechless with wrath. But she
was not paralyzed apparently, for reaching down into her pocket she
brought forth a small piece of paper, on which was written in detail the
"account due" of the Idiot.
"I'd like to have this settled, sir," she said, with some asperity.
"Certainly, my dear madame," replied the Idiot, unabashed--"certainly.
Can you change a check for a hundred?"
No, Mrs. Smithers could not.
"Then I shall have to put off paying the account until this evening,"
said 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