Greenleaf walked the floor with flashing eyes and his teeth set.

“Now, I like the spirit,” said Easelmann; “but, pray, be sensible.  ‘Where Macdonald sits, there is the head of the table.’  Stand firm in your own shoes, and graduate your bows by those you get.”

“I suppose I am thin-skinned.”

“As long as you are, you will chafe.  Cultivate a hide like a rhinoceros’s, and Society will let fly its pin-pointed arrows in vain.  You have a great deal to learn, my dear boy.”

“But other special classes are not so treated,—­literary men, for instance.”

“Don’t be too sure of that.  An author who has attained position is feted, because the fashionable circles must have their lions.  But to stand permanently like other men, he must have money or family, or else obey the world’s ten commandments, of which the first is, ’Thou shalt not wear a slouched hat,’—­and the rest are like unto it.  No,—­the literary men have their heart-burnings, I suspect.  They forget, as you do, that their very profession, the direction of their thoughts, their mode of life, cut them off from sympathy and fellowship.  What has a writer who dreams of rivalling Emerson or the ‘Autocrat’ to do with costly and absorbing private theatricals, with dances at Papanti’s, with any of the thousand modes of killing time agreeably?  And how shall you become the new Claude, if you give your thoughts to the style of your clothes, and to the inanities that make up the staple of conversation?”

“But because I am precluded from devoting my time to society, that is no reason why I should bear the patronizing airs”——­

“Don’t be patronized,—­that’s all.  If a man gives you such a look as you have described, cut him dead the next time you meet him.  If anybody gives you two fingers to shake, give him only one of yours.  I tried that plan on a doctor of divinity once, and it worked admirably.  His intended condescension somehow vanished in a mist, and the foolish confusion that overspread his blank features would have done you good to behold.”

“I have no doubt.  I don’t think it would be easy to be impertinent to you.  Not that there are not presuming people enough; but you have a way with you.  Your blade that cuts off a bayonet at a blow will glide through a feather as well.”

“A delicate stroke of yours!  Now to return.  You are out of money, you say.  Perhaps you will allow me to become your creditor for a while.  I may presume upon the relation and take on some airs;—­that’s inevitable; one can’t forego such a privilege;—­but I promise to bow very civilly whenever I meet you; and I won’t remind you of the debt—­above twice a day.”

Taking out his pocket-book, he handed his friend fifty dollars, and pshawed and poohed at every expression of gratitude.

“By the way, Greenleaf,” he continued, “I have been in search of an absconding female also.  You remember Mrs. Sandford, the charming widow?”