"You had a college education, Mr. Paret," he remarked at length.
"Yes."
"Life's a queer thing. Now if I'd had a college education, like you, and you'd been thrown on the world, like me, maybe I'd be livin' up there on Grant Avenue and you'd be down here over the saloon."
"Maybe," I said, wondering uneasily whether he meant to imply a similarity in our gifts. But his manner remained impassive, speculative.
"Ever read Carlyle's 'French Revolution'?" he asked suddenly.
"Why, yes, part of it, a good while ago."
"When you was in college?"
"Yes."
"I've got a little library here," he said, getting up and raising the shades and opening the glass doors of a bookcase which had escaped my attention. He took down a volume of Carlyle, bound in half calf.
"Wouldn't think I cared for such things, would you?" he demanded as he handed it to me.