housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily and dirtily that the
whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over it? And suppose
she talked and thought about her housekeeping all the time, and was
always having additions built to her house when she couldn't keep
clean what she already had; and suppose, with it all, she made the
house altogether unpeaceful and unlivable--"

"Just one minute!" Sheridan interrupted, adding, with terrible
courtesy, "If you will permit me? Have you ever been right about
anything?"

"I don't quite--"

"I ask the simple question: Have you ever been right about anything
whatever in the course of your life? Have you ever been right upon
any subject or question you've thought about and talked about? Can
you mention one single time when you were proved to be right?"

He was flourishing the bandaged hand as he spoke, but Bibbs said only,
"If I've always been wrong before, surely there's more chance that I'm
right about this. It seems reasonable to suppose something would be
due to bring up my average."

"Yes, I thought you wouldn't see the point. And there's another you
probably couldn't see, but I'll take the liberty to mention it. You
been balkin' all your life. Pretty much everything I ever wanted you
to do, you'd let out SOME kind of a holler, like you are now--and yet
I can't seem to remember once when you didn't have to lay down and do
what I said. But go on with your remarks about our city and the
business of this country. Go on!"