Now will you tell me why--"
"I've made three distinct and separate efforts," said Meldon, "to
change the subject of conversation. I tried to start you off on
habits, a subject on which almost every man living can talk more or
less. I thought you'd have taken that opportunity of telling the story
about the horse which always stopped at the door of a certain public
house, even after the temperance reformer had bought him. I'm sure
you'd have liked to tell that story. Everybody does."
"I don't.".
"So it appears. You're an exceptional man. Recognising that, I
started the subject of words, which is more philosophical. You might
quite easily have got off on the degradation of the English language
owing to the spread of slang. Then we could have spent an agreeable
half-hour."
"But I didn't want to talk about words. I--"
"I saw that; so I gave you another chance. Starting on the annals of
your profession, I proposed a question to you which ought to have
aroused in you a desire to defend the public utility of the great legal
luminaries of the past. I practically denied that judges are any good
at all. Instead of showing me, as you very easily might have, that it
was the judges who created the public opinion which put a stop to
duelling, and not public opinion which goaded the judges on to hang the
duellists, you--"
"I wanted to know, and I still want to know, why you changed your mind.
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