Philip, who had lived in serious company hitherto, and had no idea that grown-up people ever descended to imbecility of this description, began to like this strange gentleman. But he made no attempt to maintain a conversation with him. After the dictatorial austerity of Uncle Joseph he felt pleasantly intoxicated by his present companion's frothy effervescence, and was well content to lean back in his seat and listen.
"Of course," resumed Mr. Mablethorpe presently, "I may be wrong about the designer of this car having had no arms. He may have required them--one of them, at any rate--for other purposes. For instance, he may have been engaged to be married. Are you engaged to be married, by any chance?"
Mr. Mablethorpe appeared to fall into a fresh train of thought, and after a little while enquired:--
"What is your opinion of the female sex as a whole?"
Not long ago Philip could have given his opinion on this subject clearly and concisely. Now he was content to quote the words of another.
"I don't quite know," he said, "but Uncle Joseph thinks--"
He hesitated. Mr. Mablethorpe might not be interested in Uncle Joseph.
But this astonishing gentleman appeared to be interested in everybody.
"Tell me all that Uncle Joseph thinks," he commanded.
"Uncle Joseph," began Philip, "used to wonder why women were ever created."
Mr. Mablethorpe turned and regarded his small companion sharply.
"Aha! Uncle Joseph used to wonder that, did he? Why?"
"He said," continued Philip, warming to his subject as the familiar phrases came back to him, "that there is no parallel to the female mind in any other branch of Nature."
"That is true," remarked Mr. Mablethorpe approvingly. "I should like to meet Uncle Joseph. Go on."
"It seems incredible," pursued Philip, with a curiously incongruous expression of intense wisdom upon his honest and ingenuous features, "that Providence should handicap its own beautifully designed human engines by placing them in daily contact with such a piece of uncontrolled and ill-balanced mechanism as Woman."
"Oho!" said Mr. Mablethorpe, manipulating the oil-pump, to the noisome satisfaction of Boanerges; "Uncle Joseph said that, did he?"
"Yes; and he said putting women near a man was like putting a lot of bar-magnets round a compass. And he said they were parasites, too, actuated by predatory instincts. They--"