A critic rose from the busy company and departed, to add lustre to his paper and a nail in the coffin of the only really clever play in town.
"Kismet," observed little Dill, who did the daily cartoon for the Post, "no critic would be a critic if he could be a fifth-rate anybody else—or," he added, looking at Bunn, "even a journalist."
"Is that supposed to be funny?" asked Bunn complacently. "I intend to do art criticism for the Herald."
"What's the objection to my getting a job on it, too?" inquired Quest, setting his empty glass aside and signalling the waiter for a re-order. He expected surprise and congratulation.
Somebody said, "You take a job!" so impudently that Quest reddened and turned, showing his narrow, defective teeth.
"It's my choice that I haven't taken one," he snarled. "Did you think otherwise?"
"Don't get huffy, Stuyve," said a large, placid, fat novelist, whose financial success with mediocre fiction had made him no warmer favourite among his brothers.
A row of artists glanced up and coldly continued their salad, their Vandyck beards all wagging in unison.
"I want you to understand," said Quest, leaning both elbows offensively on Dill's table, "that the job I ask for I expect to get."
"You might have expected that once," said the cool young man who had spoken before.