Page:Stevenson - The Wrecker (1892).djvu/123

Rh “It's dry and tough enough,” said I; “a² + 2ab + b².”

“It's stimulating, though?” he inquired.

I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to Types.

“Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra,” he concluded.

The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women, he got word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who was willing and able to conduct him in these bloomless meadows; and, her circumstances being lean, and terms consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon in agreement for two lessons in the week. He took fire with unexampled rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the symbolic art; an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and the original two was soon increased to four, and then to five. I bade him beware of female blandishments. “The first thing you know, you'll be falling in love with the algebraist,” said I.

“Don't say it even in jest,” he cried. “She's a lady I revere. I could no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit. Loudon, I don't believe God ever made a purer-minded woman.”

Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.

Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon a different matter. “I'm the fifth wheel,” I kept telling him. “For any use I am, I might as well be in Senegambia. The letters you give me to attend to might be answered by a sucking child. And I tell you what it is, Pinkerton: either you've got to find me some employment, or I'll have to start in and find it for myself.”

This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward the arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.