I laughed outright; the humor of it struck me as delicious. Here I had been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating over him as a poor suffering millionaire (of course millionaires _are_ unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying _me_ for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious, this human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling! So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs. I felt as though I had set foot in a new country. "Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a millionaire?" He chuckled: "Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend. When I began--" He stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did not know who he was. "Of course," I said, "I understand that." "A man must begin small"--he was on pleasant ground--"and anywhere he likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must save, he must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when he was about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion. He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he draws the dividends--and all in a little more than twenty years. I made every single cent--but, as I said, it's a penny business to start with. The point is, I like to see young men ambitious." "Ambitious," I asked, "for what?" "Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead." "I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross-examine you, but I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean by rising? And who am I to get ahead of?" He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my consummate stupidity. "I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can of my life. It's the only one I've got." "See here," he said, "let us say you clear up five hundred a year from this farm--" "You exaggerate--" I interrupted. "Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five thousand or even fifty thousand a year?" It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!