"I beg your pardon—it is most likely. I will do it."
Nigel was more surprised than grateful.
"No, thank you."
"Do not be proud. It is purely a business offer. I expect to make money out of you, and—what do you call it?—credit. Listen here—if you cannot pay my fees, I will give you a year's tuition free of charge, on condition that I have a percentage on your salaries during the next five years. That is a generous offer—many a young man would give much to have me for professor."
Nigel shook his head.
"Thanks awfully—but I'm not keen on it."
"And why?"
"Well, for one thing, I don't want to make my stinking past into an advertisement, and for another I don't want to go back to prison."
"Prison!—that is a strange name for fame and big salaries."
"I'm not thinking of those so much as of what must come before them—all the grind and slavery. My music's the only part of me that has never been in prison, and if I make a trade and treadmill out of it, I shall be degrading it just as I have degraded everything else about me."