"I'm taking an illustration from your infernal angling," said Tod, with aggressive dignity. "If you were a lover yourself you would understand."
"Oh, I understand well enough," replied the other lightly: he paused to run his tongue along the tissue paper, then added calmly: "I was in love with Charity Bird myself, before you came along, Tod."
"Well, now that I have come along, perhaps you'll call her Miss Bird."
"Right oh! Miss Bird in the hand is worth two----"
"There are not two," interrupted Macandrew indignantly, "but only one schoolgirl cousin. As if," cried Tod to the woods, "I would sell myself."
Gerald Haskins cast a sly look on Tod's ungraceful figure. "I see: you present yourself to Miss Bird as a desirable gift?"
"Well, she wouldn't have you as a gift, anyhow, for all your Family Herald good looks, and halfpenny journal fame."
"Notoriety, Tod, notoriety only. A volume of verse, a book of stories and a dozen of essays do not give me the right to class myself along with the immortals. I'm a failure at thirty, Tod--in my own eyes, I mean. Think of that, Tod, a failure at thirty."
"Don't chuck it," advised Macandrew politely, "you may be a success at forty."
"That won't compensate me for coming grey hairs and inevitable wrinkles," said the other bitterly, and smoked in dour silence.