And finally, there is the long idleness between business interviews,
with nothing to do save sit there quiet-like and think about the
queerness of things in general: and that is always rare employment
for a poet, even without the tatters of so many lives and homes
heaped up about him like spillikins. So that I would say in all,
Mother Sereda, there is certainly no profession better suited to an
old poet than the profession of pawnbroking."

"Certainly, there may be something in what you tell me," observes
Mother Sereda. "I know what the Little Gods are, and I know what
work is, but I do not think about these other matters, nor about
anything else. I bleach."

"Ah, and a great deal more I could be saying, too, godmother, but
for the fear of wearying you. Nor would I have run on at all about
my private affairs were it not that we two are so close related. And
kith makes kind, as people say."

"But how can you and I be kin?"

"Why, heyday, and was I not born upon a Wednesday? That makes you my
godmother, does it not?"

"I do not know, dearie, I am sure. Nobody ever cared to claim kin
with Mother Sereda before this," says she, pathetically.

"There can be no doubt, though, on the point, no possible doubt.
Sabellius states it plainly. Artemidorus Minor, I grant you, holds
the question debatable, but his reasons for doing so are tolerably
notorious. Besides, what does all his flimsy sophistry avail against