“From where I sit, the difference between the two ain’t so great as to show to the undressed eye. You speak of lawyers and country editors being bought by my passes. Is there any law making ’em accept those passes if they don’t want ’em? Could I buy ONE of those men if he wasn’t for sale? There’s just one thing more, and then your little lesson’ll be over and you can run home. All through this delightful little ree-union you’ve kind of took the ‘holier-than-thou’ tone that’s such a pleasing trait of you reformers when you’re dealing with mere sane folks. Now, the best thing you can do is to take that fool idea out for a walk and lose it, for you not only ain’t any better than me, but ain’t half the man, and never _will_ be half the man I am. You were born with a gold spoon in your mouth. The spoon was pulled out after you grew up, but not till you had your education and your profession. What did you do? You’d had the best advantages money could buy you. And for all that, the most you could rise to was a measly every-day law practice. That’s all the dividends the tens of thousands of dollars invested in your future were ever able to declare, or ever _will_ be able to. _I_ started life dead broke. No education, no pull, no cash, no prospects. I don’t know just how rich I am to-day, but no one’s going to call you a liar if you put it at forty millions. And I’m bossing bigger territory—and bossing with more power—than half the so-called high and mighty kings of Yurrup. Now, s’pose _you’d_ started where I did? Where’d you be to-day? You’d be the ‘honest young brakeman on the branch road,’ or at best you’d be ‘our genial and rising young feller-townsman,’ the second deputy assistant passenger agent of the C. G. & X. That’s where _you’d_ be. And you know it. Had you the brains or the sand to get where I am? Not you. Any more than one of those patent leather ’ristocrats in France had the genius to win out the Napoleon job. You’re where you started. I’ve kept on rising. And I’ll rise to the White House before I’m done. Now I ask you, fair and square, which of us two is the best man, and if you oughtn’t to be looking up to Caleb Conover instead of——” “I am the better man,” answered Clive quietly. “And so is any honest man. And I can look down on you for the same reason any square American can look down on a political Boss. Because we are honest and you are not.”