"Indeed, it did, Alex. At every point where the law draws the shield of its mercy around the accused, in thought it seemed made for one or another of my friends, and, mentally, I found myself defending one after the other of them." "Did you, at the same time, keep in thought the fact that in an emergency the law permits a man to plead his own cause?" "Never, on my honor. In those days my life was circumspect, even as it now is, and my associates--not as now--were so genteel that there was no danger of any suspicion attaching to me, because of the people I was daily seen with." "That was good for you, but what sort of reputations did your associates have?" asked Alex. "They went on from glory to glory. One became a conductor on a railroad, and in four years, at a salary of one hundred dollars per month, retired rich. One became a bank cashier, and three years later, through the advice of his physicians, settled in the soft climate of Venice, with which country we have no extradition treaty. Another one is a broker here in this city, and I am told, is doing so well that he hopes next year to be superintendent of a mine." "Why have you not succeeded better, Colonel, financially?" "I am too honest. Every day I stop law suits which I ought to permit to go on. Every day I do work for nothing which I ought to charge for. I tell you, Alex, I would sooner be right than be President." "I cannot, just now, recall any one who knows you, Colonel, who does not feel the same way about you." "That is because the most of my friends are dull, men, like yourself. But how prospers that newspaper?" "It is the same old, steady grind," replied Alex, thoughtfully. "I saw a blind horse working in a whim yesterday. As he went round and round, there seemed on his face a look of anxiety to find out how much longer that road of his was, and I said to him, compassionately: 'Old Spavin, you know something of what it is to work on a daily paper.' I went to the shaft and watched the buckets as they came up, and there was only one bucket of ore to ten buckets of waste. Then I went back to the horse and said to him: 'You do not know the fact, you blissfully ignorant old brute, but your work is mightily like ours, one bucket of ore to ten of waste.'" "How would you like to have me write an editorial for your paper?" "I should be most grateful," was the reply. "On what theme?" "Oh, you might make your own selection." "How would you like an editorial on----scoundrels?" "It would, with your experience, be truthfully written, doubtless, but Colonel, it is only now and then in good taste for a man to supply the daily journals with his own autobiography." "How modest you are. You did not forget that, despite the impersonality of journalism, you would have the credit of the article."