I must introduce you, explained Peter, to the mother of George Moore's progeny. This is George Sand.
By this time I was a fit subject for the asylum. Even the Persian cats did not set me right. Happy or not, the man was evidently poor.
I suppose I would insult you if I offered you a job, I stuttered at last.
A job! Carl, don't you know that I simply will not work?
Well, and I found this even more difficult than my first proposal, I hope you won't misunderstand.... I haven't much ... but you must permit me to give you some money.
Money! What for?
Why, for you....
Comprehending at last, Peter threw back his head and began to laugh.
But I don't need money.... I never had so little use for it. Do you realize what it costs me to live here? About $15 a week. That includes every item, even fresh beef for my cats, I was about to tell you, if you had given me time—you always interrupt—that I simply don't know what to do with my money. Stocks have gone up. The labourers in the factories at Little Falls are working overtime to make me more prosperous. Indeed, one of the reasons I was so glad to see you was that I thought, perhaps, you could help me to spend some money.
The line about the interruptions, I should explain, was simply a fabrication of Peter's. If I have set our conversations down as monologues on his part, that is just how they occurred. Aside from Philip Moeller and Arnold Daly, I have never known any one to talk so much, and my rôle with Peter, as with them, was that of listener. To continue, I should have known enough, even so early in our acquaintance, not to be astonished by anything he might do, but if there had been a mirror in the room, which there was not, I fancy I might have looked into the most exasperatingly astonished face I had ever seen up to that time. I managed, however, to laugh. Peter laughed, too, and sat down. George Moore leaped to his knee and George Sand to his shoulder, rubbing her magnificent orange brush across his face.