John Kendrick Bangs 
Coffee and Repartee 

This is the story of what happens when men who think themselves smarter than they are face off against a man who’s smarter than he seems. Set entirely in the dining room of a cheap boarding house, Coffee and Repartee chronicles the clever, funny, competitive table talk of the boarders. Formal credentials and personal pretensions to mental superiority all crumble in the face of precisely the right come-back, time after time. (Goodreads)