"Let us hope that the good luck of the magazine will spread to you, as a result of your contact with it."
"Thank you; but it doesn't matter much, as things are. No; they are right; Murray Davenport is a marked name; marked for failure. You must know, Mr. Larcher, I'm not only a Jonah; I'm that other ludicrous figure in the world,--a man with a grievance; a man with a complaint of injustice. Not that I ever air it; it's long since I learned better than that. I never speak of it, except in this casual way when it comes up apropos; but people still associate me with it, and tell newcomers about it, and find a moment's fun in it. And the man who is most hugely amused at it, and benevolently humors it, is the man who did me the wrong. For it's been a part of my fate that, in spite of the old injury, I should often work for his pay. When other resources fail, there's always he to fall back on; he always has some little matter I can be useful in. He poses then as my constant benefactor, my sure reliance in hard times. And so he is, in fact; though the fortune that enables him to be is built on the profits of the game he played at my expense. I mention it to you, Mr. Larcher, to forestall any other account, if you should happen to speak of me where my name is known. Please let nobody assure you, either that the wrong is an imaginary one, or that I still speak of it in a way to deserve the name of a man with a grievance."
His composed, indifferent manner was true to his words. He spoke, indeed, as one to whom things mattered little, yet who, being originally of a social and communicative nature, talks on fluently to the first intelligent listener after a season of solitude. Larcher was keen to make the most of a mood so favorable to his own purpose in seeking the man's acquaintance.
"You may trust me to believe nobody but yourself, if the subject ever comes up in my presence," said Larcher. "I can certainly testify to the cool, unimpassioned manner in which you speak of it."
"I find little in life that's worth getting warm or impassioned about," said Davenport, something half wearily, half contemptuously.
"Have you lost interest in the world to that extent?"
"Oh, you can easily change that. Get into livelier surroundings."