I missed my Wharton Wednesday yesterday. I happened to be at Pittcon until it closed at 5:00, and then spent the evening with F in Kissimmee getting various things done.

Was at Pittcon Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. I had a good time talking to the instrument vendors, a few of whom I knew, and seeing what's out there. There's some cool stuff.

F and I worked on one of her costumes for MegaCon (are we seeing a theme here?), ate catfish and fried okra and tomatoes that I cooked in her little kitchen, and did her taxes.

Here's a bit from The Custom of the Country again.

"Ralph don't make a living out of the law, you say? No, it didn't strike me he'd be likely to, from the talks I've had with him. Fact is, the law's a business that wants--" Mr. Spragg broke off, checked by a protest from Mr. Dagonet. "Oh, a PROFESSION, you call it? It ain't a business?" His smile grew more indulgent as this novel distinction dawned on him. "Why, I guess that's the whole trouble with Ralph. Nobody expects to make money in a PROFESSION; and if you've taught him to regard the law that way, he'd better go right into cooking-stoves and done with it."

Mr. Dagonet, within a narrower range, had his own play of humour; and it met Mr. Spragg's with a leap. "It's because I knew he would manage to make cooking-stoves as unremunerative as a profession that I saved him from so glaring a failure by putting him into the law."

The retort drew a grunt of amusement from Mr. Spragg; and the eyes of the two men met in unexpected understanding.

"That so? What can he do, then?" the future father-in-law enquired.

"He can write poetry--at least he tells me he can." Mr. Dagonet hesitated, as if aware of the inadequacy of the alternative, and then added: "And he can count on three thousand a year from me."

Mr. Spragg tilted himself farther back without disturbing his subtly-calculated relation to the scrap basket.

"Does it cost anything like that to print his poetry?"

Mr. Dagonet smiled again: he was clearly enjoying his visit. "Dear, no--he doesn't go in for 'luxe' editions. And now and then he gets ten dollars from a magazine."

Mr. Spragg mused. "Wasn't he ever TAUGHT to work?"

"No; I really couldn't have afforded that."