"That ain't so good as it sounds," he said. "Sometimes I think I'd
amounted to more if I had somebody that belonged to me."
"Isn't it rather early in the season for a young man's fancy to be
lightly turning----"
The quotation was lost upon Quin, but the twinkle in the speaker's
expressive eye was not.
"I didn't mean that," he laughingly protested; "I mean a mother or a
sister or somebody like that, who would be a kind of anchor. Take Cass,
for instance; he's steady as a rock."
"Ah! Cassius! One in ten thousand. From the time he was twelve he has
shared with me the financial burden. An artist, Sergeant Graham, must
remain aloof from the market-place. Now that I have retired permanently
from the stage in order to devote my time exclusively to writing, my only
business engagement is a series of lectures at the university, where, as
you know, I occupy the chair of Dramatic Literature."
The chair thus euphemistically referred to was scarcely more than a
three-legged stool, which he occupied four mornings in the week, the rest
of his time being spent at home in the arduous task of writing tragedies
in blank verse.
"What I got to think about is a job," said Quin, much more interested in
his own affairs than in those of his host.
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