The  chaffer's  haunts  are  the  dinner-table,
the  boarding-house,  the  school-yard  on  a  dull


72  MUSTARD     SEED

day,  the  smoking  room  of  the  club,  and  other
customary  gathering  places.  When  things
are  particularly  dull,  when  people  are  tired  of
using  their  minds  or  have  none  to  use,  when
conversation  is  slack,  when  there  are  no
rumors  in  the  air,  no  scandals,  no  reported
wars,  when  the  tide  of  intellectual  life  has
reached  the  lowest  ebb,  down  to  wide  stretches
of  unfragrant  ooze,  then  the  chaffer  begins  to
prowl  and  the  chaff  begins  to  fly,  and  the
chaffed  begins  to  wince.  Where  is  the
chaffer's  favorite  hunting  ground?  It  is
found  associated  with  some  meek,  inoffensive
individual,  whose  powers  of  suffering  are  as
long  as  a  light  year.  Having  chosen  his
victim  and  ascertained  that  he  will  not  snap
back,  the  chaffer  brings  out  his  well-threshed
chaff,  which  will  be  some  physical  peculiarity
of  his  meek  prey,  the  place  of  his  birth  or
residence,  some  happening  of  his  past  life,
some  quality,  deficiency,  or  what  not.
The  listeners  have  heard  it  all  before,  but
they  must  resurrect  the  same  old  smile,
galvanize  it  into  a  new  lease  of  life,  spread
it  wearily  over  tired  muscles  and  hold  it
charitably  there  while  the  chaffer  goes  on.
CHAFFING  73

There  are  usually  at  hand  one  or  two  other
sounding  boxes  who  re-echo  the  noise  of  the
chief  chaffer.  The  victim?  He  is  the  dull
stone  upon  which  they  sharpen  old  and  blunt
witticisms.  He  may  be  out  of  sorts  and  more
than  usually  sensitive;  he  cannot  complain.
It  is  his  vocation  to  fill  intellectual  vacuums.
He  must  be  ground  down  to  make  a  road  on
which  the  chaffer  may  ride  his  hobby  with
comfort.
