Orsino was silent, and looked out of the window, though he was evidently
listening.

"You say you want an occupation. This is not one. Banking is an
occupation, and architecture is a career, but what we call affairs in
Rome are neither one nor the other. If you want to be a banker you must
go into a bank and do clerk's work for years. If you mean to follow
architecture as a profession you must spend four or five years in study
at the very least."

"San Giacinto has not done that," observed Orsino coldly.

"San Giacinto has a very much better head on his shoulders than you, or
I, or almost any other man in Rome. He has known how to make use of
other men's talents, and he had a rather more practical education than I
would have cared to give you. If he were not one of the most honest men
alive he would certainly have turned out one of the greatest
scoundrels."

"I do not see what that has to do with it," said Orsino.

"Not much, I confess. But his early life made him understand men as you
and I cannot understand them, and need not, for that matter."

"Then you object to my trying this?"

"I do nothing of the kind. When I object to the doing of anything I
prevent it, by fair words or by force. I am not inclined for a pitched
battle with you, Orsino, and I might not get the better of you after