“No.  But don’t send me too many of these formal things.  I keep out of them as much as I can.  I’m not a society man and probably won’t fit in with your friends.”

“I should know you were not de societe by that single speech.  If there’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 Miss De Voe and said, ’We say Chicawgo.  Now, how do you pronounce it in New York?’ Miss De Voe put on that quiet, crushing manner she has when a man displeases her, and said, ‘We never pronounce it in New York.’”