"I don't like to leave it, Tom," he said slowly, his eyes roaming over
the bright, little room. "I don't like to leave it even to hobnob with
crowned heads, and to take tea with dukes, earls, princes and kings, to
say nothing of mere lords. My world is right here; and it's all the world
I want, Tom. It's bounded on the south by the sound, on the north by the
property of the municipality, on the east and west by somebody else's
worlds, and above by eternity." Blake lighted a cigar.

"Then what are you going for?" he asked, practically.

Schuyler shrugged his shoulders.

"I wonder," he replied.

"Want me to tell you?" queried the other.

"I should be obliged," he said with a smile.

"Well," began Blake, placing finger ends to finger ends, judicially. "In
the first place, you're ambitious. You like the plaudits of the populace.
You see here a chance to get about a million per cent on your investment.
Whereby you stick two months time and a little effort into the
proposition and draw down a position that means sitting beside the chief
executive and trying to look as though you knew what he was talking
about. Also a chance to live in Washington and cut figure eights in the
diplomatic circles. All of which is perfectly natural, nothing at all to
your discredit, and furthermore shows whence come the few good men, who,
sticking their heels in, are trying to keep the country from going to the
demnition bow-wows. Am I right?"