for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the

fact and give up trying to solve the riddle. He found himself dragged

into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were

one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a

self-conferred title of nobility and marry some rich fool's absurd

daughter. Sometimes at a dinner party or a reception he would find

himself the centre of interest, and feel unutterably uncomfortable in the

discovery. Being obliged to say something, he would mine his brain and

put in a blast and when the smoke and flying debris had cleared away the

result would be what seemed to him but a poor little intellectual clod of

dirt or two, and then he would be astonished to see everybody as lost in

admiration as if he had brought up a ton or two of virgin gold. Every

remark he made delighted his hearers and compelled their applause; he

overheard people say he was exceedingly bright--they were chiefly mammas

and marriageable young ladies. He found that some of his good things

were being repeated about the town. Whenever he heard of an instance of

this kind, he would keep that particular remark in mind and analyze it at

home in private. At first he could not see that the remark was anything

better than a parrot might originate; but by and by he began to feel that

perhaps he underrated his powers; and after that he used to analyze his

good things with a deal of comfort, and find in them a brilliancy which

would have been unapparent to him in earlier days--and then he would

make

a note, of that good thing and say it again the first time he found

himself in a new company. Presently he had saved up quite a repertoire

of brilliancies; and after that he confined himself to repeating these

364

The Gilded Age