“It also seems that you have received a legacy from some relation or other of yours. Is that true?”
“Boy, I don’t know,” said Quentin ingenuously. “I’ve invented so many things, that now I don’t know which is the truth and which is a lie.” Then, turning melancholy, he added, “The trouble with me is that I am out of my element. I’m a Northerner.”
“You!” said Springer; and he began to laugh so heartily that Quentin joined him.
“What are you laughing at?”
“At how well I know you. So you are a Northerner. What a faker you are!... What shocks me is that you have become a Mason. That’s absurd.”
“Yes; it’s absurd to you and me, but it isn’t to many people.”
“Where is your Lodge?”
“In the Calle del Cister, near the Calle del Silencio. Would you like to come?”
“What for?”
“Man, we’ll baptize you anew; we’ll call you Cato, Robespierre, Spartacus....”