"Now, look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when a man comes to Washington, I don't care if it's from Heaven, let alone Cherokee Strip, it's because he _wants_ something. And I know that as a rule he's not going to get it; that he'll stay and try for another thing and won't get that; the same luck with the next and the next and the next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and ashamed to go back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart breaks and they take up a collection and bury him. There--don't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West, wasn't I? _You_ know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by everybody, kind of an autocrat, actually a kind of an autocrat, Washington. Well, nothing would do but I must go as Minister to St. James's, the Governor and everybody insisting, you know, and so at last I consented--no getting out of it, _had_ to do it, so here I came. _A day too late_, Washington. Think of that--what little things change the world's history--yes, sir, the place had been filled. Well, there I was, you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President was very sorry and all that, but that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was again. There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a little--we all reach the day some time or other when we've got to do that, Washington, and it's not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and large all round--I had to stoop a little and offer to take Constantinople. Washington, consider this--for it's perfectly true--within a month I _asked_ for China; within another month I _begged_ for Japan; one year later I was away down, down, down, supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in the gift of the Government of the United States--Flint-picker in the cellars of the War Department. And by George, I didn't get it." "Flint-picker?" "Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolution--last century. The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the Capitol. They do it yet; for although the flint-arm has gone out and the forts have tumbled down, the decree hasn't been repealed--been overlooked and forgotten, you see--and so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others used to stand still get their six quarts of gun-flints a year just the same." Washington said musingly after a pause: "How strange it seems--to start for Minister to England at twenty thousand a year and fail for flint-picker at----" "Three dollars a week. It's human life, Washington--just an epitome of human ambition and struggle, and the outcome; you aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer." There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with earnest compassion in his voice: "And so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public clamor, you get absolutely nothing for it."