"Well, who on earth ever did play fair with the public? I know you, with your ideas bounded by Fayette County's limitations, don't understand these things. There's men who would not take advantage of any man in a personal business transaction, who will get in on almost anything that will worst the public. The public is a cruel monster; the public condemned and crucified Christ; the public is behind every lynching. The public condemns and ostracizes a man, even though he has lived an upright life all his days, when some scalawag, for personal or financial reasons, assails him in a newspaper. When Commodore Vanderbilt gave utterance to the words, 'The public be damned,' he expressed the sentiment of four-fifths of those who have rubbed up against the public, as had the sturdy old man who acquired his estimate of human nature while rowing the public over the river. The public would ride across the river without paying him fare. The public will crowd into our show tonight without paying. The public will eat all the fruit that ripens, all the grain that grows, drink all the liquors malted and take anything they can get for nothing. I mean the public rabble, the mob, not the individual. The only time you can trust the public is when their sympathies are aroused over some great public calamity that brings death and desolation. Then the public is of one mind, the public then shows to best advantage." "Well, you are the funniest man I ever heard talk. Now what are you going to do to make the public what you consider it should be?" "Educate it; educate it. Three-fourths of the public are suckers, one-fourth skinners. Now, I don't mean to assert that one-fourth are dishonest men, but most of them are men a bit too fly for the others. You know there's not one man in a thousand that considers it cheating to give himself a bit the best of it. Now you argue that the public is ignorant and that the only way to get it right is to educate it. Well, the fellow who walked off with the boss's one hundred and seventy-five dollars is educated." "How do you account for his dishonesty" inquired Alfred. "I don't account for it." It was arranged that Spaff go to the boss, patch up matters between him and Alfred. Spaff requested Alfred remain in the hall that he might be near. The door closed on Spaff. Alfred remained near it; he wished afterwards he had not. The transom was open and every word uttered in the room floated through it. Spaff began: "Say, boss, I've been talking to that fresh young nigger singer, and, while he don't know much, it's my opinion he knows nothing of the guy who done you for the capital prize. He's purty handy around here and I thought you better keep him. I've got him going; I told him if he left now everybody would conclude he was in on the capital prize trick. So I think he'll stick."