He had found instinctively that a short cut to such impression was not contradictions but agreement. But he would not merely say "yes" and please his listener by subscribing whole-heartedly to the ideas or points of view under discussion. He would take these ideas and points of view and develop them, show with a sincere creative enthusiasm why they were correct and how astoundingly correct they were.
He was usually cleverer than the people with whom he agreed. This made it possible for him to develop their ideas, to add to them, supply them with nuances and far-reaching overtones of which their originators had had no inkling. When he had finished they would find themselves warmly applauding what he had said, admiring his sanity and intelligence.
It was no longer Basine who agreed with them. They agreed with Basine and each of them went away saying, "A remarkable young man. Full of very fine, worthwhile ideas and able to express himself."
They were conscious while praising him that they were also praising themselves. Although they were unaware of the adroit theft committed by Basine and unable to follow the way in which he filched their little prejudices and inflated them to noble proportions with his cleverness, they felt a kinship with the young man. Their inferior egoism did not demand recognition as collaborator. They were warmed with the emotion of being _en rapport_ with someone whom they admired. So often clever people were people with whom, somehow, one had little or nothing in common. But Basine was a clever person with whom everyone seemingly had everything in common. And they were delighted to have things in common with a clever man.
There were occasions on which Basine's cleverness was put to a difficult test. These came when a number of people, each of whom knew him differently, to each of whom he had identified himself as a champion of divergent opinions, assembled in his presence. Basine, it usually happened, was the friend in common and therefore the pivot of the vague debates which sometimes started--the awkward exchange of half-remembered arguments which constituted the intellectual life of his friends, as the make-believe of "playing house" had constituted their adult life when they were children.