[Footnote 2: His words.] “Do you believe in that dictum?” I said. “Thoroughly,” he replied, laughing. “I shall live long, in spite of the enmities which would destroy me in an instant, if the secret foes I have could only accomplish their end without danger to themselves.” “You do not really believe, surely, that you have such foes?” “Not believe it? I know it. _You_ have them, colonel, too. How long do you think you would live, if your enemies had their way with you? Perhaps you think you have no enemies who hate you enough to kill you. You are greatly mistaken--every man has his enemies. I have them by the thousand, and I have no doubt you, too, have them, though they are probably not so numerous as mine.”[1] [Footnote 1: His words.] “But their enmity comes to nothing.” “Because to indulge it, would bring them into trouble,” he replied. “Neither your enemies or mine would run the risk of murdering us in open day; but suppose they could kill us by simply _wishing it?_ I should drop down dead before your eyes--and you would fall a corpse in Main Street before you reached your home!”[1] [Footnote 1: His words.] “A gloomy view enough, but I dare not deny it.” “It would be useless, colonel. That is the way men are made. For myself, I distrust all of them--or nearly all.” He uttered the words with intense bitterness, and for a moment remained silent. “This is gloomy talk,” he said, “and will not amuse you. Let us change the topic. When I am not discussing public affairs--the doings of this wretched administration, and the old man of the sea astride upon the country’s back--I ought to try and amuse myself.” “You find the _Examiner_ a heavy weight upon you?” “It is a mill-stone around my neck.”[1] [Footnote 1: His words.] “Why not throw it off, if you find it onerous?” “Because I look to this journal as a father does to an only son--as my pet, my pride, and the support and honor of myself and my name in the future.” “You are proud of it.” “It has made me, and it will do more for me hereafter than it has ever done yet.” He paused, and then went on, with a glow in his swarthy face: “Every man has his cherished object in this world, colonel. Mine is the success and glory of the _Examiner_. I intend to make of it what the London _Times_ is in England, and the world--a great power, which shall lay down the law, control cabinets, mould parties, and direct events. It has given me much trouble to establish it, but _ça ira_ now! From the _Examiner_ I expect to realize the great dream of my life.” “The dream of your life? What is that?--if I may ask without intrusion.”