The Purist Purized (1-2)

Are you the man whose scent is so keen for a blunder, and who is himself blunder-proof?

I think I may say so.

I suppose one must be blunder-proof, to detect the man who is not so?

Assuredly.

Do I understand that you are proof?

How could I call myself educated, if I made blunders at my age?

Well, shall you be able to detect a culprit, and convict him if he denies it?

Of course I shall.

Catch me out, then; I will make one just now.

Say on.

Why, the deed is done, and you have missed it.

You are joking, of course?

No, upon my honour. The blunder is made, and you none the wiser. Well, try again; but you are not infallible on these sort of things.

Well?

Again, the blunder made, and you unconscious.

How can that be, before you have opened your lips?

Oh yes, I opened them, and to a blunder; but you never see them. I quite doubt you seeing this one even.

Well, there is something very queer about it if I do not know a solecism when I hear it.

One begins to doubt, when a man has missed three.

Three? What do you mean?

A complete triolet of them.

You are certainly joking.

And you are as certainly a poor detective.

If you were to say something, one might have a chance.

Four chances you have had, and no result. It would have been a fine feather in your hat to have got them all.

Nothing fine about it; it is no more than I undertook.

Why, there you are again!

Again?

‘Feather in your hat’?!

I don’t know what you mean.

Precisely; you do not know. And now suppose you go first; you do not like following, that is what it is; you understand, if you chose.