"Democracy is tall enough to take care of itself. I wear that ring; but it don't follow that I stand on my ancestry. You needn't laugh: the case is just this. If the blood in my veins makes me stand to my colors where another man would flinch, or hold my head up where another would be sprawling on his back; if it gives me a better pluck, grit, go-ahead; why, _that's_ what I stand on,--_that's_ my patent of nobility. What the deuse are you laughing at?--the personal quality,--don't you see?--and not the ancestry." "If you stand on personal merit, you'll be sure to go under before long. The democracy are growing as jealous of that as of ancestry, or of wealth either." "Why, what do you know about politics? You never had any thing to do with them. You are no more fit for a politician than for a fiddler." "I'm glad you think so. If I must serve the country in any public capacity, I pray Heaven it may be as a scavenger sooner than as a politician. Who can touch pitch and be clean? I'll pay back your compliment, Dick. You are a great deal too downright to succeed in public life." "I'll find a way or make one. But I tell you, colonel,"--and a shade of something like disappointment passed over his face,--"if a man wants the people's votes, it's fifty to one that he's got to sink himself lower than the gutter before he gets them." "Yes, and when the people have turned out of office every man of virtue, honor, manliness, independence, and ability, then they will fling up their caps and brag that their day is come, and their triumph finished over the damned aristocracy." "You are an unbeliever. You haven't half faith enough in the people. Now I put it to your common sense. Isn't there a thousand times more patriotism in the laboring classes in this country--yes, and about as much intelligence--as in the rabble of sham fashionables at Saratoga, or any other muster of our moneyed snobs and flunkeys?" "Exceptions excepted, yes." "War to the knife with the codfish aristocracy! They are a kind of mongrel beast, expressly devised and concocted for me to kick. I don't mean the gentlemen with money; nor the good fellows with money. I know what a gentleman is; yes, and a lady, too, though I do make stump speeches, and shake hands all round with the sovereign people. That sort are welcome to their money. No, sir, it's the moneyed snobs, the gilded toadstools, that it's my mission to pitch into." "Excuse me a moment, Dick," said Morton, suddenly leaping from his seat, as a lady passed the window. "A lady, eh! Then I'll be off." "No, no, stay where you are. I'll be back again in three minutes." He ran out of the hotel, and walked at his best pace in pursuit of Fanny Euston, who, on her part, was walking with an earnest air, like one whose thoughts were engaged with some engrossing subject. He reached her side, and made a movement to accost her; but she seemed unconscious of his presence.