"That's just it. Your crowd are all alike, at least the leaders; they are hungry for the fleshpots. If _they_ had the opportunities, _we_ should be served as they are now. That's the chief trouble,--nobody really cares to make the sacrifices. And that is why this row will be ended on the old terms: the rich will buy out the leaders. Better times will come, and we shall all settle down to the same old game of grab on the same old basis. But _you_," Sommers turned on the sauntering blue-eyed fellow, "people like you are the real curse." "Why?" "Because you are insincere. All you want is the pie. You make me feel that the privileged classes are right in getting what they can out of fools and--knaves." "That's about enough. I suppose you are put out about the money--" "Don't be an ass, Dresser. I don't need the hundred. And I don't want a quarrel. I think you are playing with dynamite, because you can't get the plunder others have got. Look out when the dynamite comes down." "It makes no difference to me," Dresser protested sullenly. "No! That's why you are dangerous. Well, good-by. Get your friends to leave the Northwestern open a day or two longer." "There won't be a train running on the Northwestern to-morrow. I've seen the orders." "Well, I shall foot it home, then." They shook hands, and Dresser hurried on after his friends. Sommers retraced his steps toward the station. Dresser's vulgar and silly phrase, "boot-licker to the rich," turned up oddly in his memory. It annoyed him. Every man who sought to change his place, to get out of the ranks, was in a way a "boot-licker to the rich." He recalled that he was on his way to the rich now, with a subconscious purpose in his mind of joining them if he could. Miss Hitchcock's wealth would not be enormous, and it would be easy enough to show that he was not "boot-licker to the rich." But it was hard to escape caste prejudices, to live with those who prize ease and yet keep one's own ideals and opinions. If this woman had the courage to leave her people, to open a new life with him elsewhere--he smiled at the picture of Miss Hitchcock conjured up by the idea.