"What's your idea?" asked Abraham, playing with his watch-guard, a
smile as of inward triumph flitting about his lips.

"I have none. I only know that I've been half-starved for years in
the cursed business of teaching, and that I can't stand it any
longer. I want some kind of occupation that will allow me to have
three good meals every day, and leave me my evenings free. That
isn't asking much, I imagine; most men manage to find it. I don't
care what the work is, not a bit. If it's of a kind which gives a
prospect of getting on, all the better; if that's out of the
question, well, three good meals and a roof shall suffice."

"You're turning out a devilish sensible lad, Osmond," said Mr.
Woodstock, still smiling. "Better late than never, as they say. But
I don't see what you can do. You literary chaps get into the way of
thinking that any fool can make a man of business, and that it's
only a matter of condescending to turn your hands to desk work and
the ways clear before you. It's a mistake, and you're not the first
that'll find it out."

"This much I know," replied Waymark, with decision. "Set me to
anything that can be learnt, and I'll be perfect in it in a quarter
the time it would take the average man."

"You want your evenings free?" asked the other, after a short
reflection. "What will you do with them?"

"I shall give them to literary work."

"I thought as much. And you think you can be a man of business and a