"Why not? It would puzzle the Devil himself to make out what the truth is in one of our real double and twisted New York newspaper rows. I don't pretend to do it, but I'll show up either side or both sides if I'm paid for it. We young men must live! If the public must have spicery we must get it up for them. We only serve out what they order. I tell you, now, what this great American people wants is a semi-occasional _row_ about something, no matter what; a murder, or a revival, or a great preacher, or the Black Crook; the Lord or the Devil, anything to make matters lively, and break up the confounded dull times round in the country." "And so you get up little personal legends, myths, about this or that man?" "Exactly, that's what public men are good for. They are our drums and tamborines; we beat on 'em to amuse the people and make a variety; nobody cares for anything more than a day; they forget it to-morrow, and something else turns up." "And you think it right," said I, "to use up character just as you do boot-blacking to make your boots shine? How would you like to be treated so yourself?" "Shouldn't mind it a bit--Bless your buttons--it don't hurt anybody. Nobody thinks the worse of them. Why, you could prove conclusively that any of our public men break the whole ten commandments at a smash--break 'em for breakfast, dinner and supper, and it wouldn't hurt 'em. People only oh and ah and roll up their eyes and say "Terrible!" and go out and meet him, and it's "My dear fellow how are you? why haven't you been round to our house lately?" By and by they say, "Look here, we're tired of this about Brown, give us more variety." Then Jones turns up and off go the whole pack after Jones. That keeps matters lively, you see." I laughed and Jim was perfectly satisfied. All that he ever wanted in an argument was to raise a laugh, and he was triumphant, and went scratching on with his work with untiring industry. He always left me with an uneasy feeling, that by laughing and letting him alone I was but half doing my duty, and yet it seemed about as feasible to present moral considerations to a bob-o-link. "There," he said, after half an hour of scribbling, "there's so much for old Mam." "Who's old 'Mam'?" "Haven't heard! why, your mistress and mine, the old Mammon of unrighteousness; she is mistress of all things here below. You can't even carry on religion in this world but through her. You must court old Mam, or your churches, and your missions, and all the rest go under, and Jim works hard for her, and she owes him a living." "There have been men in our day who prevailed in spite of her." "Who, for example?" "Garrison."