human
Is there anything amusing you?
gpt
Well, drawled Carroll,
human
One trouble in talking to you is that I never know whether you're in earnest or not. You trot out your cold-blooded worldly wisdom--I suppose it is wisdom--and then you grin at it.
gpt
It seems to me that's the only philosophic attitude, Carroll replied.
human
It's possible to grow furiously indignant with the restraints stereotyped people lay on one, but on the whole it's wiser to bow to them and chuckle. After all, they've some foundation.
gpt
You've been right in the advice you have given me more than once. You seem to know how prosperous, and what you call stereotyped, people look at things. But you've never explained where you acquired the knowledge.
human
Oh, that's quite another matter,
gpt
Anyway, there's one remark of yours I'd like to answer. You would, no doubt, consider that I made a legitimate use of my money when I entertained that crowd of city people--some of whom would have plundered me if they could have managed it--in Vancouver. I didn't grudge it, of course, but I was a little astonished when I saw the wine and cigar bill. It struck me that the best of them scarcely noticed what they got--I think they'd been up against it at one time, as we have; and it would have done the rest of the guzzlers good if they'd had to work with the shovel all day on pork and flapjacks. But we'll let that go. What have you and I done that we should swill in champagne, while a girl with a face like that one below and a child who dances like a fairy haven't enough to eat? You know what I paid for the last cigars. What confounded hogs we are!