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“Well, I wouldn’t lower myself by trying to argue with you,” said Mrs. Felman. “I’m perfectly right in everything I say, but I simply don’t know how to fiddle with words like you do.”

“Have you still got those poetry ideas in your head?” asked Mr. Felman. “Poetry is no business for a strong, grownup man. It’s a lot of foolishness good for women and children!”

“If you could write things that make money now,” said Mrs. Felman. “Why, only the other day Mrs. Benjamin was telling me she has a cousin who writes love stories for the Daily Gazette. Nice stories that make you laugh and cry. And this girl gets twenty dollars apiece for them, too.”

“Now, now, don’t be trying to encourage him again,” said Mr. Felman. “Ain’t we had enough trouble over this writing of his? Let him go out and get a regular job, like other men!”

Carl laughed, and his laugh was like an emotion interviewed by carbolic acid, and his parents eyed him with an offended surprise.

“Still squabbling over the bones,” he said, with a sarcastic apathy. “If you were more delicate you might realize that it is inappropriate to argue at a funeral. I’m only a tongue-tied fool, but I seem very elusively inarticulate to you because you’re even more tongue-tied. And now, as usual, you haven’t understood a word of what I’ve said.”