"Commercial or professional?" inquired Mr. Martel.
"Oh, I can turn my hand to 'most anything," bragged Quin, blowing
smoke-rings at the ceiling. "It's experience that counts, and, believe
me, I've had a plenty."
"Experience plus education," added Mr. Martel; "we must not underestimate
the advantages of education."
"That's where I'm short," admitted Quin. "My folks were all smart enough.
Guess if they had lived I'd been put through college and all the rest of
it. My grandfather was Dr. Ezra Quinby. Ever hear of him?"
Mr. Martel had to acknowledge that he had not.
"Guess he is better known in China than in America," said Quin. "He died
before I was born."
"And you have no people in America?"
"No people anywhere," said Quin cheerfully; "but I got a lot of friends
scattered around over the world, and a bull-dog and a couple of cats up
at a lumber-camp near Portland."
"Cassius tells me that you are thinking of returning to Maine."
Quin ran his fingers through his hair and laughed. "That was yesterday,"
he said. "To-day you couldn't get me out of Kentucky with a machine-gun!"
Claude Martel rose and laid an affectionate hand on his shoulder.
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