Drake laughed at the application of the homoeopathic principle to the sale of books.
'No, I will take this,' he said, and, moving aside from the stall, stood for a little turning the book over and over in his hands, feeling its weight and looking incessantly at the title-page, wondering, you would say, that the author had accomplished so much.
He had grounds for wonder, too.

His thoughts went back across the last ten years, and he remembered Mallinson's clamouring for a reputation; a name--that had been the essential thing, no matter what the career in which it was to be won.

Work he had classified according to the opportunities it afforded of public recognition; and his classification varied from day to day.

A _cause celebre_ would suggest the Bar, a published sermon the Church, a flaming poster persuade to the stage.

In a word, he had looked upon a profession as no more than a sounding-board.
It had always seemed to Drake that this fervid desire for fame, as a thing apart in itself, not as a symbol of success won in a cherished pursuit, argued some quality of weakness in the man, something unstable which would make for failure.