ndlesticks, and other kickshaws, which
had never (up to that day) been honoured with the least approval.

"And your room?" asked Myner.

"O, my room is all right, I think," said I. "She is a very good old
lady, and has never even mentioned her bill."

"Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she should be
fined," observed Myner.

"What do you mean by that?" I cried.

"I mean this," said he. "The French give a great deal of credit amongst
themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the system would hardly
be continued; but I can't see where WE come in; I can't see that it's
honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit by their easy ways, and then skip
over the Channel or (as you Yankees do) across the Atlantic."

"But I'm not proposing to skip," I objected.

"Exactly," he replied. "And shouldn't you? There's the problem. You
seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors of cabmen's
eating-houses. By your own account you're not getting on: the longer you
stay, it'll only be the more out of the pocket of the dear old lady at
your lodgings. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: if you consent to go,
I'll pay your passage to New York, and your railway fare and expenses
to Muskegon (if I have the name right) where your father lived, where he
must have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening. I
don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast; but I
do ask you to pay it back when you are able. At any rate, that's all
I can do. It might be different if I thought you a genius, Dodd; but I
don't, and I advise you not to."

"I think that was uncalled for, at least," said I.

"I daresay it was," he returned, with the same steadiness. "It seemed to
me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for money upon no security,
you treat me with the liberty of a friend, and it's to be presumed that
I can do the like. But the point is, do you accept?"

"No, thank you," said I; "I have another string to my bow."

"All right," says Myner. "Be sure it's honest."

"Honest? honest?" I cried. "What do you mean by calling my honesty in
question?"

"I won't, if you don't like it," he replied. "You seem to think
honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't. It's some difference of
definition."

I went straight from this irritating interview, during which Myner had
never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old master. Only one
card remained for me to play, and I was now resolved t