"Do you honestly enjoy this sort of thing?"
Thayer glanced down at the muddy crossing where they stood waiting for a car to pass.
"No. I prefer an occasional street-cleaning episode; but what can you expect in a March thaw?"
"I don't mean that," Bobby said impatiently. "I'm not joking now."
"Beg pardon," Thayer returned briefly. "What do you mean, Dane?"
"I mean all this tramping round the country, singing to strange people, getting applause at night and reading about yourself, next day. Doesn't it get a frightful bore, after the dozenth time you've been through it?"
"The applause and the audience and the criticisms, yes. The singing, no," Thayer said, after an interval.
"And you're willing to put up with one for the sake of the other?"
"Yes."
Bobby dodged a shower of mud from a passing cab.