Francois Boucher Madame de Pompadour painting

Francois Boucher Madame de Pompadour paintingFrancois Boucher Adoration of the Shepherds paintingJohannes Vermeer The Concert painting
had no visible effect.
"What's in it for me if I tell you?" he chuckled, squinting at my shadow. "It's later than you think."
Angrily I reminded him that I was no ignorant beggar, deserving or otherwise, but a registered bonafide Candidate for Graduation and a Grand Tutorin posse, who could certainly give him a much-needed Tutorial word or two if I so chose -- the which by tradition and common fame were pearls of so great price that all the information in all the encyclopedias of the University was as nothing beside the least of them.
"No deal," Ira Hector replied. "I've been Certified already." From a worn leather snap-purse in his vest pocket he pinched out a much-folded parchment, of a kind familiar: under the usual certificatory formulations, Harold Bray's signature and a penned subscription:"Founder helps those who help themselves."
"I've helped myself to everything in reach!" he admitted gleefully, adding that while he personally regarded Graduation as the daydream of fools and bankrupts, worth nothing on the informational market, he'd offered to support Bray's Grand-Tutorship in Tower Hall in return for Certification, both because he frankly enjoyed possessing anything that other people craved, and because he wanted to assure himself that even a Grand Tutor has His price.