Thus lectured the man of markets, measuring sticks, and scales; and while I do not think him altogether exact, there has been much in my story to bear out what he said. It was not that I wasted my money in riot, or in vicious courses. My morals were good, and I had no vices. This was not much to my credit; my morals were instinctive, like the morals of an animal. My one passion was for politics, and my one ambition the ambition to lead men. Nor was I eager to hold office; my hope went rather to a day when I should rule Tammany as its Chief. My genius was not for the show ring; I cared nothing for a gilded place. That dream of my heart's wish was to be the power behind the screen, and to put men up and take men down, place them and move them about, and play at government as one might play at chess. Still, while I dreamed of an unbridled day to come, I was for that the more sedulous to execute the orders of Big Kennedy. I had not then to learn that the art of command is best studied in the art of obedience. To be entirely frank, I ought to name the one weakness that beset me, and which more than any spendthrift tendency lost me my fortune as fast as it flowed in. I came never to be a gambler in the card or gaming table sense, but I was inveterate to wager money on a horse. While money lasted, I would bet on the issue of every race that was run, and I was made frequently bankrupt thereby. However, I have said enough of my want of capacity to hoard. I was young and careless; moreover, with my place as alderman, and that sovereignty I still held among the Red Jackets, when my hand was empty I had but to stretch it forth to have it filled again. In my boyhood I went garbed of rags and patches. Now when money came, I sought the first tailor of the town. I went to him drawn of his high prices; for I argued, and I think sagaciously, that where one pays the most one gets the best. Nor, when I found that tailor, did I seek to direct him in his labors. I put myself in his hands, and was guided to quiet blacks and grays, and at his hint gave up thoughts of those plaids and glaring checks to which my tastes went hungering. That tailor dressed me like a gentleman and did me a deal of good. I am not one to say that raiment makes the man, and yet I hold that it has much to do with the man's behavior. I can say in my own case that when I was thus garbed like a gentleman, my conduct was at once controlled in favor of the moderate. I was instantly ironed of those rougher wrinkles of my nature, which last, while neither noisy nor gratuitously violent, was never one of peace.