"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. "Then, my boy, we claim you as our own. Cassius' home is your home, his family your family, his——"
The address of welcome was cut short by Cass's arrival with an armful of wood which he deposited on the hearth, and a moment later the girls, followed by Edwin, came trooping in from the kitchen.