“It must have been, let’s see, back in the--well, no matter, I don’t exactly recall just now, and it isn’t material. But this young fellow came up from down our way to take his seat for the first time in the legislature. He was a young lawyer, smart, good-looking, a fellow every one liked. He had the gift of the gab; he could make a rattling speech, was strong on the stump and good before a jury. Everybody wanted to see him succeed. He was ambitious--ambitious as Lincoln, ambitious as the devil. His ambitions were not selfish--that is, not so damned selfish. He was no reformer, nothing like that; but he really wanted to help his people, wanted to do something to make life a little easier, a little better for the average fellow--like those he knew back home. He didn’t have, perhaps, any very clear idea how he was going to do this, but he wanted to do it somehow, and, vaguely enough, I reckon, he felt that the chance would turn up. Back home, too, there was a girl--you got a girl, McCray?” The young man, startled by the abrupt question, turned up to Holman, who shambled along a head taller than he, a face that went red; a smile came to it, then, suddenly, it went gray and he turned away. “Beg your pardon,” said Holman, “that’s none of my business, of course. But this fellow of mine, he had a girl back there. I knew about it; we were young members, first term, and he used to tell me things. And he wanted to marry this girl and make her happy. He thought, you see, that by being something, doing something in the world, he could do _that_.” They were by this time far out Sixth Street, at the edge of town; a little farther on lay the open country. They came to a pasture with a broken fence and a tree. “Let’s sit down here,” Holman said, “and rest, and I’ll get on with my story.” They sat side by side on the bank at the roots of the elm, and Holman, having finished his cigar and being a man who seemed to require tobacco in some form every moment of the day, drew out a long plug and a knife and cut a piece and put it comfortably into his mouth. “Chew?” he said, proffering tobacco and knife. McCray shook his head, but lighted a cigarette. And the old and the new generation sat there side by side on the bank. “Interested?” asked Holman. “Yes; go on.” “Well, this young fellow I’m telling you of--the legislature was just a stepping-stone to him; that’s what he thought and that’s what everybody thought; beyond that were congress, governor, senator, everything. He went right ahead, was popular and influential, got good committees, and when he got up to speak the house grew quiet--you’ve seen it that way yourself--and he worked and studied, and back home there was the girl--and they wanted to get married. But he was poor--mighty poor.”