Mr. Cardan shook his head. “Not at all absurd,” he said. “I’m only telling the truth. For alas, it is true that I’ve never really been a successful parasite. I could have been a pretty effective flatterer; but unfortunately I happen to live in an age when flattery doesn’t work. I might have made a tolerably good buffoon, if I were a little stupider and a little more high-spirited. But even if I could have been a buffoon, I should certainly have thought twice before taking up that branch of parasitism. It’s dangerous being a court fool, it’s most precarious. You may please for a time; but in the end you either bore or offend your patrons. Diderot’s _Neveu de Rameau_ is the greatest literary specimen of the type; you know what a wretched sort of life he led. No, your permanently successful parasite, at any rate in modern times, belongs to an entirely different type—a type, alas, to which by no possible ingenuity could I make myself conform.” “I should hope not,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle, standing up for Mr. Cardan’s Better Self. Mr. Cardan bowed his acknowledgments and continued. “All the really successful parasites I have come across recently belong to the same species,” he said. “They’re quiet, they’re gentle, they’re rather pathetic. They appeal to the protective maternal instincts. They generally have some charming talent—never appreciated by the gross world, but recognised by the patron, vastly to his credit of course (that flattery’s most delicate). They never offend, like the buffoon; they don’t obtrude themselves, but gaze with dog-like eyes; they can render themselves, when their presence would be tiresome, practically non-existent. The protection of them satisfies the love of dominion and the altruistic parental instinct that prompts us to befriend the weak. You could write at length about all this,” went on Mr. Cardan, turning to Miss Thriplow. “You could make a big deep book out of it. I should have done it myself, if I had been an author; and but for the grace of God, I might have been. I give you the suggestion.”