"To you, Peter—the famous trencherman of song and story? Why this unwonted daintiness?"
"Lassitude. Too weary to climb the stairs. Besides, I wasn't hungry."
"Ah," said Reggie Townes, "you have the caveman's idea of dinner, I see.
It strikes you as purely an occasion for purveying provender to man's
interior. The social feature eludes you. You know what I think, Peter?
You ought to go to work."
"Work!"
"That's the word. What of it?"
"Not a thing. The idea was new to me; that's all."
"Persiflage and all that aside, why don't you take a stab at politics?"
"Politics! Here in New York! I'd sooner go into Avernus of the easy descent. If you had a town to run all by yourself now, there might be something in it. That idea of yours as to going to work, while unquestionably novel, strikes me as rather clever."
"No credit belongs to me," said Townes, "if I happened to be born brilliant instead of good-looking."
"I'll ponder it," said Peter; and stretching out his great hand with a gesture which banished the subject, he pushed a service button and begged Townes to be so kind as to name his poison.