"I read the letters in the papers."

"It's a bad look-out."

"How?"

"Cambridge has lost touch with the times."

"Was she ever intended to touch them?"

"She satisfies," said Rickie mysteriously, "neither the
professions, nor the public schools, nor the great thinking mass
of men and women. There is a general feeling that her day is
over, and naturally one feels pretty sick."

"Do you still write short stories?"

"Because your English has gone to the devil. You think and talk
in Journalese. Define a great thinking mass."

Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown.

"Estimate the worth of a general feeling."

Silence.

"And thirdly, where is the great world?"

"Oh that--!"