"Will you be gone long, Mr. Symes?"
"Good God! Don't call me Mister Symes," he burst out in unexpected exasperation.
Augusta's eyes filled with tears.
"But—but everybody calls you 'Andy' and—and just 'Symes' sounds so familiar. Why can't I call you 'Phidias?'"
"Phidias! Do, by all means, call me Phidias. I dote on Phidias! I love the combination—Phidias Symes. Father was drunk when he named me."
He slammed the door behind him, forgetting to explain that he was not returning for luncheon or dinner so, that evening, while Augusta wandered aimlessly through the rooms, both hungry and anxious yet afraid to venture into the big dining-room, Andy P. Symes was saying with impressive emphasis as he fumbled in a box of cabanas:
"Big opportunities, I am convinced, seldom come more than once to a man."
His guests listened to the trite axiom with the respect due one who has met and grappled successfully with his one great chance. His well-fed appearance, his genial, contented smile, gave an impression of prosperity even when his linen was frayed and his elbows glossy; now in the latest achievement of a good tailor it was difficult to conceive him as being anything less than a millionaire.
"And this," Symes looked squarely in each eager eye in turn, "this, gentlemen, is such an opportunity."
The timid voice of a man who had made a hundred thousand from a patent fly-trap broke the awed silence.