“Oh, not in the market-place.  In my own soul.”

“Forty-nine, fifty,” said the Professor.  “Turn here.  In your own soul, you say?” He glanced at the youth beside him.  “Bambi has sold her birthright for a mess of pottage,” he muttered.

“That’s just the question.  Whose duty is it to provide the pottage?”

“Maybe you think it’s mine?”

“Why shouldn’t Science support Art?”

“Humph!  Why not let Bambi support you?  She says she wants to.”

“I am willing she should support herself, but not me.”

“So the only question is, will I support you?”

“Exactly.  With Bambi off your hands, you will have no other responsibility, and you could not do a bigger thing for the world than to help me to instruct and inspire it.”

“Aristophanes!” exclaimed the Professor.  “You are unique!  You are number twenty-three.”

“Why twenty-three?”

“Because that is neither much nor little.”

“Your daughter thinks my plays will sell, but I tell you frankly I doubt it.”

“How can you instruct and inspire if nobody listens?”

“They must listen in the end, else why am I here?”

The Professor relinquished his chase, to stare again.  “You are at least sincere in your belief in yourself—­twenty-three.  I’d like to hear some of these great ideas of yours.”

“Very well.  I am going to read a play to your daughter this evening.  If you care to come, you may listen.  Then you will see that it would pay you to stake me for a couple of years.”

“I’ll come and listen.”

“If you decide to undertake me, I insist that you shall not continue this scornful avoidance of me.  If we three are to live together, we must live in harmony, which is necessary to my work.”

“Whose favour is this, yours or mine?”

“Favour?  Good heavens! you don’t think it is a favour to give me food and a roof for two years, do you?  I thought it was an opportunity for you.”

The Professor, not easily moved to mirth, did an imitation of laughter, holding both his sides.  Jarvis turned his charming, boyish smile upon him, and walked up the path to the house.  Strange what things amused Bambi and her parent!

That night, after dinner, Bambi arranged the electric reading light in the screened porch, drew a big chair beside it, placed the Professor’s favourite chaise-lounge near by, and got him into it.  Then she went in search of her performer.  She looked all over the house for him, to finally discover him on the top floor in hiding.

“Come on!  I’ve got everything all ready, even the Professor.”

“I am terrified,” Jarvis admitted.  “Suppose you should not understand what I have written?  Suppose you thought it was all rubbish?”

“If I think so, I will say so.  Isn’t that the idea?  You are trying it on the dog to see if it goes?”

“If you think it is rubbish, don’t say anything.”