“And you think your Nihilism better suited for the American people than a republic, such as that which was supplanted by the present Monarchy?” said Professor Dean, who had been an attentive listener and who now for the first time joined in the conversation. “Ah, sir, I have heard you refer with striking disparagement to that Republic. I would gladly have you give some reasons for these views!” “Bah!” exclaimed the High President contemptuously, “the old-time Republic, eh! Could anything more evil, corrupt, hypocritical, farcical and criminal exist under the sun than that old-time Republic of yours? All modern thinkers, writers and sociologists are agreed as to that. You have heard me say that of the two the present monarchy was the better institution, and I spoke advisedly.” “What--what!” stammered the Professor, fairly taken aback at the directness and violence of the attack. “Your reasons, sir--your reasons!” “Reasons?” repeated the High President. “They will not be hard to give. To-day we have only one King. He is great and rich and powerful, so much so that he need seek no further self-advantages but may rest content with all that which is his. He need have an eye only to the welfare of his nation and his people. We have an aristocracy, too; also great and rich, so much so that they can well afford to lay self-interest aside and seek public life with a view solely to the greater glory of their country. There are exceptions to this, of course, but I speak of our aristocracy as a class. Then, too, our aristocrats of to-day have been aristocrats for a sufficient time to be at least free from the shortcomings, the arrogance and the vices which have ever marked the _parvenu_. Now let us look at the old-time Republic!” “Yes, yes,” exclaimed the Professor, bending forward in his eagerness. “The old-time Republic,” continued the High President, “had not one king but many. You had not a monarch--serene and majestic, clothed in the royal purple, bearing the sceptre and crown and surrounded by the glitter and the glory of an imperial court. Instead, the land was divided up among a parcel of little rulers--men mostly of low origin and ignoble ideals--who really exercised kingly power. Take your proud Empire State of New York--a state as broad, as rich and as populous as some of the great empires of Europe. Two little kings reigned there--the one, a small, shrivelled, old man who divided his time between the handling of parcels and the pulling of political wires; the other a beetle-browed, sullen ruler, whose brutal hands, reeking with crime and corruption, were ever stretched forth to grasp further plunder.” “By heaven!” exclaimed Mortimer, “was it really as bad as that!”