"With your kind permission, directly. It's all in this--you haven't got the trick."
"The trick of conversation. That's not just it. The trick of answering back. Aha, that's better! Scratch out first sentiment. Change signals!"
"There's something in that," said Stover, genuinely amazed.
"The word was blush," said Finnegan firmly. "I saw you--Finnegan saw you and grieved. And why? Because you didn't have the trick of answering back."
"Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan," said Stover slowly, "I believe you are a whole-hearted little cuss. Also, you're not so far off, either. Now, since this is a serious conversation, this is where I stand: I went through Hades last spring--I deserved it and it's done me good. I've come back to make good. Savez? And that's a serious thing, too. Now if you have one particular theory about your art of conversation to elucidate--eluce."
"One theory!" said Finnegan, chirping along as he perceived the danger-point passed. "I'm a theorist, and a real theorist doesn't have one theory; he has dozens. Let me see; let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C--first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on--it's a bum hat, by the way--and some one pipes up; 'Get that at the fire sale?' What are you going to answer?"
"Why, I suppose I'd grin," said Stover slowly, "and say: 'How did you guess it?'"
"Wrong," said Finnegan. "You let him take the laugh."
"Something in this style: 'Oh, no, I traded it for luck with a squint-eyed, humpbacked biter-off of puppy-dog tails that got it out of Rockefeller's ashcan.' See?"
"No, Dennis, no," said Stover, bewildered. "I see, but there are some things beyond me. Every one isn't a young Shakspere."
"I know," said Finnegan, accepting the tribute without hesitation. "But there's the principle. You go him one better. You make him look like a chump. You show him what you could have said in his place. That shuts him up, makes him feel foolish, spikes the gun, corks the bottle."
"It's what I call the Superiority of the Superlative over the Comparative."
"It sounds simple," said Stover pensively.
"You know, Dennis," said Stover, smiling reminiscently, "I used to have the gift of gab once, almost up to you."