This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on “The Seven,” who would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed to desist. But when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my fellow-men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not till then did I abandon the hopeless struggle. And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph. There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my humble opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed, and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the bandits dividing my estate? But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion of my fellow-men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me as a deliverer; now they look up to me because they falsely believe me guilty of what I regard as an infamy. My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a mass of cushions under the awning. “We are going ashore,” said he. “The order has come.” I had a sudden sense of loneliness. “I’ll take you down to New York,” said I. “I must put my guests off where I took them up.” As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval. The “financiers”--the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders who had slipped in during the confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving and robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the milker was seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so much as shake of horn or switch of tail. “Mulholland,” said I, “what do you think of this business of living?”