They were conscious while praising him that they were also praising themselves. Although they were unaware of the adroit theft committed by Basine and unable to follow the way in which he filched their little prejudices and inflated them to noble proportions with his cleverness, they felt a kinship with the young man. Their inferior egoism did not demand recognition as collaborator. They were warmed with the emotion of being _en rapport_ with someone whom they admired. So often clever people were people with whom, somehow, one had little or nothing in common. But Basine was a clever person with whom everyone seemingly had everything in common. And they were delighted to have things in common with a clever man. There were occasions on which Basine's cleverness was put to a difficult test. These came when a number of people, each of whom knew him differently, to each of whom he had identified himself as a champion of divergent opinions, assembled in his presence. Basine, it usually happened, was the friend in common and therefore the pivot of the vague debates which sometimes started--the awkward exchange of half-remembered arguments which constituted the intellectual life of his friends, as the make-believe of "playing house" had constituted their adult life when they were children. But at such times Basine revealed his interesting talents as a compromiser, fence straddler, pacifier. Without espousing any of the sides presented, without denial or affirmation, he managed to convince the assembledge that he was a champion of all and detractor of none. He pretended a worldly tolerance, saying such things as: "Well now, there are always two sides to a question. And a man who closes his mind to either side is likely as not to find himself in the dark. What Henning says is interesting. I can entirely understand it and see the reasons for it. He sees the thing in a clear, definite manner. Yet what Stoefel says is also interesting and, of course, entertaining. I don't mean that I believe two sides to a question can both be the right sides. But it's my experience that there's an element of truth as well as of error in both sides. And I'm not so convinced that Henning and Stoefel actually differ. Often people meaning the same thing get into violent arguments because they misunderstand each other." In this way he would convince both his friends that they were both men of intelligence, which is more flattering than being merely men of intelligent views. And, what was more important, he would give the listeners the impression of a calm, deliberative Basine, not to be taken in by the tricks of prejudice and speech which caused men to knock their heads together in endless argument.