“Any kind. The club is full of hobby-riders. Of all people that I know, they have the keenest appetite for life. Look at old Denechaud; he was a misanthrope until he took to gathering scarabs. Fenton, over there, has the finest collection of circus posters in the world. Bellerding’s house is a museum of obsolete musical instruments. De Gay collects venomous insects from all over the world; no harmless ones need apply. Terriberry has a mania for old railroad tickets. Some are really very curious. I’ve often wished I had the time to be a crank. It’s a happy life.”
“What line would you choose?” asked Bertram languidly.
“Nobody has gone in for queer advertisements yet, I believe,” replied the older man. “If one could take the time to follow them up—-but it would mean all one’s leisure.”
“Would it be so demanding a career?” said Average Jones, smiling.
“Decidedly. I once knew a man who gave away twenty dollars daily on clues from the day’s news. He wasn’t bored for lack of occupation.”
“But the ordinary run of advertising is nothing more than an effort to sell something by yelling in print,” objected Average Jones.
“Is it? Well perhaps you don’t look in the right place.”
Waldemar reached for the morning’s copy of the Universal and ran his eye down the columns of “classified” matter. “Hark to this,” he said, and read:
“Is there any work on God’s green earth for a man who has just got to have it?”
“Or this: