"I think the lion and the mouse were Æsop," said Val.
"Never heard of the gent. But anyhow, I caught on to it in Sunday School—when I was a kid, I'm dead sure of that, and I always was a quoter. You ain't a New Yorker, are you?"
"No. I'm an Englishman," Loveland answered quickly.
"Gee, but you're a swell-lookin' emigrant! I ain't a New Yorker myself—not by birth. I was a hayseed till I turned nineteen; workin' on my stepfather's farm—mean old skinflint, but I couldn't see my way to cuttin' till my mother was gone. Then I footed it to New York—sixty mile—chuck full of hope, and nothin' else, unless beans."
"A regular Mark Tapley," said Val.
"Never played the part. In private life my name's Bill Willing: some switches it round to Willing Bill, because I generally do my day's work without howlin'; I blew into New York without attractin' much notice, and that's nineteen years ago, and I haven't attracted much since, that's a fact. But you may do better. Don't be discouraged by a setback, if your game's square, and I bet it is, or you wouldn't be in the dog savin' business. What is your lay, anyhow?—excuse the liberty."
"Retrieving my fortune," said Val, after a moment's reflection.
"You can see me one better. Mine's to make yet, and I'm no kid—like you. I won't see thirty-eight again. I'm an artist. But New York ain't woke up to my talent. Maybe I've been too versatile. That never did pay. The line I'd mapped out was paintin' pictures, but my chance was slow comin'. Had to take what I could get on the way along: supin', sandwichin', barkin'——"
"Eh, what?" broke in Loveland.
"You don't savvy? Oh, supin' in theatres. There's several, specially one in the Bowery, wouldn't 'a been complete without me for years, till I got the chuck like you did at the Waldorf. Sandwichin'—why, you know what that is, sure? You wouldn't think how you get the cramps shut up between the boards? The sandwichin' was generally in the theatrical line, too, so I've always kind of hovered around the profession, though I don't say I'm proud of my career as a barker in the dimes—museums, you know. There was money in the business, though, if the freaks hadn't caught on that I had the heart of a soft boiled egg—always ready to part if they worked the aged mother dodge, or the baby brother who threw fits. I ain't no penny-in-the-slot savings bank. Wish I was. I should be better off now. Besides, my voice ain't an automobile horn, and barkin' for a couple of seasons stove a hole in my top note. After that, no manager would take me with a pound of tea and a chromo, but one of my old govs switched me onto a job paintin' freak showboards, and I'd 'a been at it yet if freaks didn't last too long. Once you've put them on the boards, there they are. At present my speciality's meenoos."