Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/64

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then there's something wrong with her. He shook his head ominously.

But I don't get you yet! Paul cried. You seem to have discovered a philosophy of life or a mode of living that makes you happy, or healthy, or at least amuses you, and perhaps it would have this effect on me too, if I understood it. Perhaps, it would become my business.

It certainly is your business, his companion replied heartily.

Then explain it!

What do you want me to do? O'Grady questioned him sadly, peering at the same time out into the steel-blue atmosphere, splashed with the warm glow of the street-lamps. A feeble voice in the distance could be heard calling, Sex Weekly! Sex Weekly! . . . Shall I, Gunnar went on after a pause, take a chair at Columbia? I have already informed you that I am no preacher or professor . . . His air became even more serious . . . Nor would it do you any good if I were. You can't spread good tidings by talking. Why, Margaret Sanger has actually turned a great many people against birth-control, and William Jennings Bryan has probably interested a great many people in drinking, and John Roach Straton and John Sumner are excellent guides to the pseudo-vices, and the Republicans make men good Democrats, and the Democrats make men good Republicans. No, you can't disseminate a philosophy by vaunting its efficacy.