It's slow but glorious, I understand. When I'm
starving in a garret, awaiting fame with the pious and cocksure
confidence of genius, will you guarantee to invite me to a square meal
once a fortnight? Think what it would give me to look forward to!"
She was looking him in the face with an expression of frank curiosity.
"Ban, does money never trouble you?"
"Not very much," he confessed. "It comes somehow and goes every way."
"You give the effect of spending it with graceful ease. Have you got
much?"
"A little dribble of an income of my own. I make, I suppose, about a
quarter of what your salary is."
"One doesn't readily imagine you ever being scrimped. You give the
effect of pros--no, not of prosperity; of--well--absolute ease. It's
quite different."
"Much nicer."
"Do you know what they call you, around town?"
"Didn't know I had attained the pinnacle of being called anything,
around town."
"They call you the best-dressed first-nighter in New York."
"Oh, damn!" said Banneker fervently.
"That's fame, though. I know plenty of men who would give half of their
remaining hairs for it."
"I don't need the hairs, but they can have it."
"Then, too, you know, I'm an asset."
"An asset?"
"Yes. To you, I mean.
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