"All right." Armstrong sat up, preventingly. "I don't want to argue with you. You're a typical lawyer and always ride me down by pure force of mass." He smiled. "Gentlemen of the law are invariably that way, Darley. Figuratively, you fellows always travel horseback while the rest of us go afoot, and if we don't hustle out of the way you ride us down without remorse." Roberts was listening again in silence, with his normal attitude of passive observance. "I'm feeling pretty spry, though, to-night," went on the other, "and able to get out of the way, so I'm going to get in close as possible and watch you. I've tried to do so before, but somehow I'm always side-tracked just at the psychological moment." The quizzical voice became serious, the flippant manner vanished. "Honestly, Darley, I can't understand you any more than you can me. You said a bit ago you wondered where I would end. I have the same wonder about you. Just what are you aiming at, old man, anyway? In all the years I've known you _you've_ never come right out and said in so many words." "You mean what do I intend to do that will make me famous or infamous, that will at least make me talked about?" Armstrong laughed shortly. The shot was well aimed. "I suppose that is approximately what I had in mind," he admitted. "To answer your question then, directly, I don't intend to do anything. Nothing is further from my plans than to get a position where I'll be talked about." "Just what do you want, then?" "I want the substance, not the husk. I want to be the party that pulls the wires and not the figures that dance on the front of the stage. I want things done when I say they shall be done. I want the piper to play when I pass the word. I'm perfectly willing that others should have the honor and the glory and the limelight; but after the play is over I want to be the boy to whom the report is made and who gives directions for the next performance. Is that definite enough?" "Yes, definite enough; but are you going to get there? You asked me the same question, you recall, a bit ago." "Yes, if I live." "And if you don't live?" Again the shrug. "I shall have tried. I can tell Saint Peter that." "I didn't refer to Saint Peter. I meant you yourself. Where is your own justification except in the attainment of the end?" "Justification!" Roberts leaned suddenly forward, his attitude no longer that of an observer but of a participant, one in the front of the charge. "The game is its own justification, man! Things don't have to be done with two hundred bright young students watching and listening to be worth while, my friend." Armstrong shifted uncomfortably, then he tacked. "Just one more question, a repetition again of your own. Have you the attainment of this object you suggest definitely in sight? You're older than I and have been playing the game some time yourself." "I think so." "Do you know so?" "As nearly as a man can know anything that hasn't come to pass."