That's a way Gordon has. From one subject he leaps to another like a canary hopping on the sticks of his cage; but there is method in his madness. He swiftly exhausts the possibilities of a remark and goes to another without losing time. "The animals," I answered, "are a rather dull and probably uninteresting lot. First, come two girls who live in a hall bedroom, together." "It shows on their part an admirable power of concentration." "I suppose so; their conversation is chiefly reminiscent and plentifully dotted with 'says I' and 'says she' and 'says he.' They are honest young persons and work in a large candy-shop. Hence they must be surfeited with sweets at a deplorably early age." "Not with all of them; they will find some hitherto untasted, but just as cloying in the end," remarked Gordon. "I hope not. There is also an elderly couple living on the bounty of a son who travels in collars and cuffs. Sells them, you know. Then I've seen three men who work somewhere and occasionally comment upon what they see in the newspaper. Murders fill them with joy, and, to them, accidents are beer and skittles. I suspect that they esteem themselves as what they are pleased to call 'wise guys,' but they are of refreshing innocence and sterling honesty. One of them borrowed a dollar from me, the other day, to take the two girls to the movies. He returned it on next pay day." "Look out, David, he may be trying to establish a credit," Gordon warned me. "You are such an easy mark!" "I'll be careful," I assured him. "Then we have a poor relation of the landlady. He looks out for the furnace in winter and is a night watchman in a bank. An inoffensive creature who reads the papers the other boarders throw away." "Altogether it makes up a beautiful and cheering totality of ineptitude, endowed with the souls of shuttles or cogwheels," opined Gordon. "Well, as Shylock says, if you prick them, they bleed," I protested. "At any rate they must have some close affinity with the general scheme of Nature." "Nature, my dear Dave, is a dustbin in which a few ragmen succeed in finding an occasional crust of dry bread wherewith to help fill the pot and make their hearts glad. It is a horribly wasteful organization by which a lady cod produces a million eggs that one fish may possibly reach maturity and chowder. Four trees planted on a hill commonly die, but, if you stick in a few thousands, there may be a percentage of survivals, besides nuts for the squirrels. Humanity represents a few tall trees and a host of scrubs." Thus does Gordon always lay down the law, to which I generally listen with some amusement. He is dogmatic and incredulous, though he lacks scepticism in regard to his own opinions.