“Not the monologist alone was ignored in this unmannerly way; the nimble epigrammatist fared no better. The brightest sallies of wit, the oddest ventures in paradox, the most delicious bits of humor and the finest turns of wisdom—all met the same fate, all alike fell upon the stony soil of inattention. Remember that I speak, not of ordinary dullards, but of the so-called choice spirits of clubland, ‘gentlemen of wit and pleasure about town.’” With a sidewise movement toward the door the Timorous Reporter cautiously advanced the notion that possibly something in the quality of the Curmudgeon Philosopher’s wit may not have had the good fortune to commend itself to his auditors. “Selected from Apuleius, from Rabelais, Pascal, Rochefoucauld, Pope, and boldly worked into the conversation, they always passed without recognition of either their source or their wit. The company was simply unaware that anything out of the common had been said. Egotism has a bale of cotton in each ear.” The Curmudgeon Philosopher paused to note the effect of his epigram. Seeing that safety meant either applause or absence the Timorous Reporter deemed it expedient to withdraw by way of an open window. FETISHISM “We are wiser in many ways than our savage ancestors; we are wiser than the savages of to-day,” said the Curmudgeon Philosopher, with the air of one making a great concession; “yet for every folly or vice of uncivilized man I can show you a corresponding one among ourselves. In the matter of religions, for example, and of religious rites and observances, we have, mixed in with our better faiths, vestiges of all the primitive superstitions that have marked the childhood of the race. Vestiges, did I say? Why, sir, in many instances we have the veritable thing itself in all the vigor of its perennial prime.” The Reporter ventured to express a conviction that a crude and primitive religion could have no devotees among so enlightened and cultivated a people as ours. “Sir,” thundered the Adversary of Presumption, turning a delicate purple, “races are like individuals; along with the vices and virtues of maturity they have those of infancy. No people ever is sufficiently civilized and enlightened to have laid aside any of its early superstitions and absurdities. To these it adds better things. It overwrites its primitive ideas with ideas less crude and reasonless; but nothing has been effaced. The latest text of the palimpsest is most in evidence, but all is there and, to a keen enough observation, legible. Did you never see a whole concourse of moderns uncover to a flag?” The Reporter confessed that those whom he had seen performing this religious rite were mostly moderns.