“Because I must take a dinky little cheap place at first, then soon, I’ll be on my feet, financially speaking, and I can move to decenter quarters. You see, I’m going to ask you after all to trust me with a few shekels, right now, and I’ll return the loan, with interest, at no far distant date.”
His calm assumption of success in a business way impressed me favorably. Undoubtedly, he had been one accustomed to making and spending money in his previous life, and he took it as a matter of course. But his common sense, which had by no means deserted him, made him aware that he could get no satisfactory position without some sort of credentials.
As he talked he was idly, it seemed, unconsciously, drawing on the paper pad that lay on the table at his elbow—delicate penciled marks that resolved themselves into six-sided figures, whose radii blossomed out into beautiful tendrils or spikes until they formed a perfect, harmonious whole; each section alike, just as in a snow crystal.
They were so exquisitely done that I marveled at his peculiar gift.
“You ought to design lace,” I observed; “those designs are too fine for papers or carpets.”
“Perhaps so,” he returned, seriously gazing at his drawings. “Anyway, I’ll design something,—and it’ll be something worthwhile!”
“Maybe you were an engraver,” I hazarded, “before you——”
“Before I fell through the earth? Maybe I was. Well, then, suppose tomorrow I so far encroach on your good offices as to go with you to see the firm you mentioned. Or, if you’ll give me a letter of introduction——”
“Do you know your way around New York?”
“I’m not sure. I have a feeling I was in New York once,—a long time ago, but I can’t say for certain.”