"Why not?" he demanded oratorically. "Why ever not? With that natural gift of yours…" He shook his head again, clicking his tongue in eloquent expression of his undiminished awe and admiration. "It's the most amazing thing! Of course, I sometimes see fellows who are nearly as good-looking as you are, but they haven't got your manner. Why, if you took a few lessons—"
Simon registered the exact amount of glowing satisfaction which he was supposed to register.
"That's what I came to you for, Mr. Quarterstone. I've seen your advertisements—"
"Yes, yes!"
Mr. Quarterstone got up and came round the desk again. He took the Saint's face in his large warm hands and turned it this way and that, studying it from various angles with increasing astonishment. He made the Saint stand up and studied him from a distance, screwing up one eye and holding up a finger in front of the other to compare his proportions. He stalked up to him again, patted him here and there and felt his muscles. He stepped back again and posed in an attitude of rapture.
"Marvellous!" he said. "Astounding!"
Then, with an effort, he brought himself out of his trance.
"Mr. Tombs," he said firmly, "there's only one thing for me to do. I must take you in charge myself. I have a wonderful staff here, the finest staff you could find in any dramatic academy in the world, past masters, every one of 'em — but they're not good enough. I wouldn't dare to offer you anything but the best that we have here. I offer you myself. And because I only look upon it as a privilege — nay, a sacred duty, to develop this God-given talent you have, I shall not try to make any money out of you. I shall only make a small charge to cover the actual value of my time. Charles Laughton paid me five thousand dollars for one hour's coaching in a difficult scene. John Barrymore took me to Hollywood and paid me fifteen thousand dollars to criticize him in four rehearsals. But I shall only ask you for enough to cover my out-of-pocket expenses — let us say, one thousand dollars — for a course of ten special, personal, private, exclusive lessons… No," boomed Mr. Quarterstone, waving one hand in a magnificent gesture, "don't thank me! Were I to refuse to give you the benefit of all my experience, I should regard myself as a traitor to my calling, a very — ah — Ishmael!"
If there was one kind of acting in which Simon Templar had graduated from a more exacting academy than was dreamed of in Mr. Quarterstone's philosophy, it was the art of depicting the virgin sucker yawning hungrily under the baited hook. His characterization was pointed with such wide-eyed and unsullied innocence, such eager and open-mouthed receptivity, such a succulently plastic amenability to suggestion, such a rich response to flattery — in a word, with such a sublime absorptiveness to the old oil — that men such as Mr. Quarterstone, on becoming conscious of him for the first time, had been known to wipe away a furtive tear as they dug down into their pockets for first mortgages on the Golden Gate Bridge and formulae for extracting radium from old toothpaste tubes. He used all of that technique on Mr. Homer Quarterstone, so effectively that his enrolment in the Supremax Academy proceeded with the effortless ease of a stratospherist returning to terra firma a short head in front of his punctured balloon. Mr. Quarterstone did not actually brush away an unbidden tear, but he did bring out an enormous leather-bound ledger and enter up particulars of his newest student with a gratifying realization that Life, in spite of the pessimists, was not wholly without its moments of unshadowed joy.
"When can I start?" asked the Saint, when that had been done.