untidiness.

Two of the occupants of the room, curled up on elevated window ledges,
were emitting clouds of tobacco smoke and nursing their knees; the
other two, naked to the waist, sat on a couple of ordinary bedroom
mattresses deposited carefully in the vacant centre of the apartment.
They were eager, alert-looking young men, well-muscled, curly of hair,
and possessing in common an unabashed carriage of the head which, more
plainly than any mere facial resemblance, proved them brothers. They,
too, were nursing their knees.

"He must be an unadorned ass," remarked one of the occupants of the
window seats, in answer to some previous statement.

"He is not," categorically denied a youth of the mattresses. "My dear
Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's
people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off
on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is
not only unkind, but stupid."

Hench laughed. "You amuse me, Jeems," said he; "elucidate."

Jeems let go his knees. The upper part of his body, thus deprived of
support, fell backward on the mattress. He then clasped his hands
behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.

"Listen, ye multitude," he began; "I'm an artist. So are you. I'm also
a philosopher. You are not. Therefore, I'll deign to instruct you. Ben
de Laney has a father and a mother. The father is pompous, conceited,
and a bore. The mother is pompous, conceited, and a bore. The father