What a fool not to have thought of him at first.
He knew all the gossip of Paris, and was always communicative--but was he, after all?
He remembered now that the painter had a way of talking at discretion: he had never got any really good material from him.

But he would try him in this.
So, as Gaston and Jacques travelled down the Boulevard Montparnasse, Meyerbeer was not far behind.

The journalist found Ian Belward at home, in a cynical indolent mood.
"Wherefore Meyerbeer ?" he said, as he motioned the other to a chair, and pushed over vermouth and cigarettes.
"To ask a question." "One question?
Come, that's penance.

Aren't you lying as usual ?" "No; one only.

I've got the rest of it." "Got the rest of it, eh?
Nasty mess you've got, whatever it is, I'll be bound.