The Charm School
One of the best ways of keeping your temper in an argument, as most of us know only too well, is not to listen to anything the other person has to say. This discussion now went forward very comfortably, each party to it using comparative leisure of the other one's speeches in order to marshal his own ideas.
"Direct and clear!" roared Mr. Johns—"why, I think you must be crazy. Women can't be clear, for they don't know how to think, and they can't be direct, for they don't know what they want, and when they do they change it. Varium et mutabile, that feller knew what he was talking about."
"Yes, and who said that?" cried Austin, for the first time appreciating that his midnight studies of Virgil had not been wasted, "a slick male god trying to get a wandering widower to desert a woman so constant that she immediately burned herself up on the seashore when he actually went."
"Ha!" said Mr. Johns, "and do you call that sensible—to burn yourself up on the beach? Do you quote that as a rational, intelligent action?"
"I call it clear and direct, anyhow," said Austin, and at this instant the door again opened and this time George hurried in.
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