"Haven't got any. You see, sir," said Quin, expanding under the flattering attention of his host, "my people were all missionaries. Most of them died off before I was fourteen, and I was shipped back to America to go to school. I didn't hold out very long, though. After two years in high school I ran away and joined the navy." "And since then you have been a soldier of fortune, eh? No cares, no responsibilities. Free to roam the wide world in search of adventure." Quin studied the end of his cigarette. "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. "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!"