THE INTERROGATIVE BORE.
QUESTIONS are just now in every one's mind, for did not Li Hung Chang pass through the land from South to North, like the cross-examining counsel in the Court of the Recording Angel, asking questions, and sparing neither age nor sex? The Census and the Commissioners for Income-tax were nothing to him, and he could elicit a maiden lady's age or a professional man's earnings between two puffs of his pipe. After such an experience the country is naturally enough considering the subject of questions as a whole, and asking many things as to their use and abase. Undoubtedly Socrates has much to answer for. The abuse of the Socratic method has shown the world, to borrow and slightly modify a phrase from Dr. South, what a dangerous and dreadful weapon a question may be in the hands of an expert bore. There is no torture greater than that which can be inflicted by a drill and persevering person whose manhood, like that of Uncle Joseph in The Wrong Boa, has been early sapped by a thirst for general information. It. is possible that when he begins he asks questions wi, h a desire to obtain information, but that phase of the domestic Grand Inquisitor soon wears off, and in the end he probes the knowledge of his friends from pure love of probing. The question is sufficient to itself. The answer is not really material. No subject is too great and none too small for investigations which, strange to say, are both vague and microscopic, and of time and place, appropriateness and in- appropriateness, he reeks nothing. The questioning bovt will ask you during breakfast (1) What is your opinion of tL"t immortality of the soul ? (2) Who is Mr. Billings "of whom I hear you talk so much ? "—Billings is a local solicitor who is engaged to your wife's second cousin, and his name was only mentioned once incidentally, but a new name to the true questioner is like the smell of blood to a vulture—(3) Why did Lord Rosebery fail to get on with Sir William Harcourt ? (4) How much are eggs a dozen in your district ?
(5) Would radis d cheval be good French for horse-radish ?
(6) What were your four great-grandmothers' crests ? (7) Do you agree with the atomic theory? (8) What is the atomic theory P—To stay a torrent like this what mere human effort can avail We have seen irony tried, but the effect was nil, —nay, less than nothing. When with the appearance of the second batch of toast came the question, "Is your subsoil a. good one ? " a young man of a satirical turn and literary gifts most rudely cut in with a few lines from Browning's "Soliloquy in the Spanish Cloister" :— "Dare we hope oak galls ? I doubt
What's the Latin name for parsley ? What's the Greek name for swine's snout ? "
Did the outraged questioner rise in his wrath and leave the room ? Not a bit of it. He listened attentively and then remarked, "Most interesting. I have myself often wondered what oak galls are, and what they were used for. Perhaps you can tell me. The Latin for parsley I used to know, I'm sure, but the Greek for swine's snout is a very carious- point. We must certainly not forget to put it to Dr. Puffingly when he comes to luncheon to-morrow. I suppose- there is no doubt the Greeks did have swine. They must, because Ulysses had a swineherd. By the way, what is the- price of bacon a score here, and do the poor people often keep pigs, and if so, do they usually kill and cure them themselves or sell them live to the butchers ? " &c., &c., &o. And so the talk slides off unconsciously into another series of questions.. Another way of meeting such questions is to borrow a device once used by Dr. Johnson,—" Are the average profits of auctioneers unreasonably high ? " When such questions are put to them, some people try to intimidate the interrogator by thundering out, "I do not know, Sir. Perhaps no man shall ever know." But it is useless. Probably the remark would merely be a peg for a regiment of questions directed towards the elucidation of the true principles for calculating an auctioneer's profits, as, "Are not auctioneers paid a percentage on their sales ? Could you not calcu-
late the sales Do they make a return to any one ? Would not the Commissioners of Income-tax be able to check their returns F" &c., &c., &c. But that way madness lies. The truth is, the best plan is to make no attempt to check the question bore. He will only, like Ophelia, turn for your irony or your rudeness "to favour and to prettiness," and found thereon a new mountain of questions. From the true bore questioner there is no escape but flight, silence, or suicide. There are, of course, attempts at a radical cure. As a palliative the following may be tried if the pain is severe. Ask the nearest schoolmaster to spend the day with you, but contrive that he shall spend it with the questioner. It is ten to one that in the course of the afternoon the inflammation of mind will be abated. The cause of the cure is to be found in the fact that schoolmasters are capable of imparting an in- definite amount of mixed information without loss of temper. Long practice on their pupils has shown them that almost any answer will do to stop the mental leakage of any question, and that the answerer need never be perturbed by lack of know- ledge. Besides, a schoolmaster, if ever fairly cornered, knows bow to apply the Scotch method of answering one question by another. For example :—Q. "Have the clergy sufficient incomes provided for them in Scotland ? "—A. "What is a sufficient income for a Scotch clergyman F" But besides the bore there is another class of persons in
whose hands the question may be "a dangerous and dreadful weapon." Those are they who do not realise the serious onsequences of questions, and fail to understand that asking a question is like drawing a curtain in a room-full of company without having first ascertained what is behind. It is all very well if there is only a bookcase. But suppose, instead, there is disclosed a shelf with a half-empty medicine-bottle, a .decanter of sherry, a bottle of hair-oil with a rag stuck in instead of a cork, an old and rather greasy-looking pair of • s"-pers, and a broken-down brush and comb. Who can say
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taat the effect of such a revelation before company is agreeable? It is just the same with questions. It sounds as innocent to ask a man what was his wife's father's profession as to draw -a red serge curtain, but if the father in question disap- peared about the time of the Assizes, the question may prove a source of acute misery. Mr. Stevenson makes one of his characters say that he never asks questions because it partakes too much of the nature of the day of judgment. He goes on to point out that asking a question is like setting a stone rolling down a mountain. It goes bounding along, gaining force and capacity for evil as it goes,
• " till at last some bland old bird is knocked over in his back-garden and the family have to change their name." That is no exaggeration. We have known an amateur pedigree- -hunter worry a family with questions about the mothers of their great-grandmothers till he bad to be taken aside -and told that if he went on much longer be would expose to the admiring eyes of the world the fact that, owing to what people euphemistically call "a Scotch mar- aiage," it was doubtful whether the family estates and title ought not to belong to a distant cousin. It is often not a little curious to see the anxiety displayed by middle-aged -ladies and gentlemen when some rash and inexperienced younger member of the family is flinging about mixed ques- lions as if the game were the safest in the world. Not other- wise would the head of a dynamite factory look if a set of Zulus had got into the store-room and were "playing Billy" sivitla the bricks of explosives. William, who has only just deft Oxford, wonders why Aunt Julia snapped him up on when he asked that very innocent question as to how many brothers her husband had. It was absurd, he thinks, for her to act as if such a question were unduly and rudely inquisitive, and to assume an expression of face which said 'Ask me that again at your peril." When William has been called to the Bar, and has seen from papers in chambers a few of the complications of family history, he will sympathise with Aunt Julia's determination that the cartain shall not be drawn aside which hides the disgrace of her husband's youngest brother. If she were to allow the existence of that brother, how can she tell that the next questions would not be " What sort of a man was he P Is he alive ? Where does he live ? Don't you ever see him ? " and so on and so on till the whole story must come out ? It was once oar good fortune to hear of an investigation before an American Comminion, the report of which ran something in this way. Q. "Did you remove the papers? "—No reply.— Q. " We must insist on your answering this question."— Witness. "If you press that question I must defend myself." The report goes on to say that at a sign from the chairman the witness was seized by the attendants and a bowie-knife and two revolvers were taken from him. "Examination resumed. Q. Did you remove the papers ? '—‘ You are taking an unfair advantage of a defenceless man. Under the circumstances / have no option but to tell the truth. I burnt them.'" That is very often the attitude of people worried by careless questions. They show very clearly that if they are pressed they will defend themselves, and if the questioner has not the tact to see and "sheer off," it is not unlikely that he will meet with a disagreeable experience, unless, of course, he has the power to disarm them. A Talleyrand may be able to turn one question by another, but the ordinary man -cannot. All he can do when he sees that the blunderer is going to draw the curtain and expose something he does not -svant exposed, is to hit the offending hand sharply over the knuckles. In truth questions are dangerous weapons which ought only to be fired off by careful and experienced people. The young, except on abstract subjects, should no more be encouraged to make use of them than they should be en- couraged to play with firearms. It is no less dangerous to turn a questioner loose in one's drawing-room than it is to let
a man walk about the house with a repeating-rifle at full-cock. Both rifles and questions are excellent things in their proper place, but they want to be kept well under control.
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