“Classic!” exclaimed Berryman, transfixing Shelton with his eyes; “the fellow ought to have been horsewhipped for writing such putridity!”

A feeling of hostility instantly sprang up in Shelton; he looked at his little host, who, however, merely blinked.

“Berryman only means,” explains Washer, a certain malice in his smile, “that the author is n’t one of his particular pets.”

“For God’s sake, you know, don’t get Berryman on his horse!” growled the little fat man suddenly.

Berryman returned his volume to the shelf and took another down.  There was something almost godlike in his sarcastic absent-mindedness.

“Imagine a man writing that stuff,” he said, “if he’d ever been at Eton!  What do we want to know about that sort of thing?  A writer should be a sportsman and a gentleman”; and again he looked down over his chin at Shelton, as though expecting him to controvert the sentiment.

“Don’t you—­” began the latter.

But Berryman’s attention had wandered to the wall.

“I really don’t care,” said he, “to know what a woman feels when she is going to the dogs; it does n’t interest me.”

The voice of Trimmer made things pleasant: 

“Question of moral standards, that, and nothing more.”

He had stretched his legs like compasses,—­and the way he grasped his gown-wings seemed to turn him to a pair of scales.  His lowering smile embraced the room, deprecating strong expressions.  “After all,” he seemed to say, “we are men of the world; we know there ’s not very much in anything.  This is the modern spirit; why not give it a look in?”

“Do I understand you to say, Berryman, that you don’t enjoy a spicy book?” asked Washer with his smile; and at this question the little fat man sniggered, blinking tempestuously, as if to say, “Nothing pleasanter, don’t you know, before a hot fire in cold weather.”

Berryman paid no attention to the impertinent inquiry, continuing to dip into his volume and walk up and down.

“I’ve nothing to say,” he remarked, stopping before Shelton, and looking down, as if at last aware of him, “to those who talk of being justified through Art.  I call a spade a spade.”

Shelton did not answer, because he could not tell whether Berryman was addressing him or society at large.  And Berryman went on: 

“Do we want to know about the feelings of a middle-class woman with a taste for vice?  Tell me the point of it.  No man who was in the habit of taking baths would choose such a subject.”

“You come to the question of-ah-subjects,” the voice of Trimmer genially buzzed he had gathered his garments tight across his back—­“my dear fellow, Art, properly applied, justifies all subjects.”

“For Art,” squeaked Berryman, putting back his second volume and taking down a third, “you have Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ossian; for garbage, a number of unwashed gentlemen.”