“Look here,” said Fledgeby. “You’re deep and you’re ready. Whether I am deep or not, never mind. I am not ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle, I can hold my tongue. And I intend always doing it.”
“You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby.”
“May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, it may amount to the same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never going to answer questions.”
“My dear fellow, it was the simplest question in the world.”
“Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what they seem. I saw a man examined as a witness in Westminster Hall. Questions put to him seemed the simplest in the world, but turned out to be anything rather than that, after he had answered ’em. Very well. Then he should have held his tongue. If he had held his tongue he would have kept out of scrapes that he got into.”
“If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the subject of my question,” remarked Lammle, darkening.
“Now, Lammle,” said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for his whisker, “it won’t do. I won’t be led on into a discussion. I can’t manage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my tongue.”
“Can?” Mr. Lammle fell back upon propitiation. “I should think you could! Why, when these fellows of our acquaintance drink and you drink with them, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The more they let out, the more you keep in.”
“I don’t object, Lammle,” returned Fledgeby, with an internal chuckle, “to being understood, though I object to being questioned. That certainly is the way I do it.”