Alcibiades, whose beautiful head added to the charms of Venice, then continued: "Nothing, O Plato, can be truer than your remark. My lady friend was a living example of your statement. To me, after so many hundreds of experiences, her made-up little mask was no hindrance,--I saw through her within less than a week. She was, at heart, as dry, as kippered, as intentionalist, and coldly self-conscious as the driest of Egyptian book-keepers in a great merchant firm at Corinth. Nothing really interested her; she was only ever running after what she imagined to be the fashion of the moment. What she really wanted was to be the earliest in 'the latest.' When she came to the bookshop, at five in the afternoon, when all the others came, she would ask the clerk after the latest fashion in novels. She did that so frequently, and with such exasperating regularity, that one day the clerk, who could stand it no longer, said to her: 'Madame, be seated for a few moments--the fashion is just changing.' She, not in the least disconcerted, eagerly retorted: 'I say, is that "the latest"?' The clerk gave notice to leave! "One day I found her in a very bad humour. When pressed for an explanation, she told me that just at that moment an elegant funeral was going on, at which she was most anxious to attend. 'Why, then, do you not go?' I asked. "'Because,' she replied, 'it is simply impossible. Just fancy, that good woman died of heart failure!' "'?'-- "'You cannot see? Heart failure? Can you imagine anybody to die of heart failure, when the only correct thing to do is to die of appendicitis? I telephoned in due time to her doctor, imploring him to declare that she died of that smart disease. But he is a brute. He would not do it. Now I am for ever compromised by the friendship of that woman. Oh how true was the remark of your sage Salami, when he said that nobody can be said to be happy before all his friends have died!'" Thereupon the gods and heroes congratulated Solon upon his change of profession: having been a sage, he was now a sausage. "The next time I saw my lady friend," Alcibiades continued, "I found her in tears. Inquiring after the cause of her distress, I learnt: "'Just imagine! You know my little pet-dog. I bought him of a lady-in-waiting. He has the most exquisite tact and feels happy only in genteel society. An hour ago my maid suddenly left my flat, and expecting, as I did, a lady of very high standing, I did a little dusting and cleaning in my room. When my Toto saw that; when he watched me actually doing housemaid's work, he cried bitterly. He could not bear the idea of my demeaning myself with work unfit for a lady. It was really too touching for words. When I saw the refined sense of genteeldom in Toto's eyes, I too began crying. And so we both cried.' * * * * *