to butt in with a lot of people that don't
know me and don't want to know me. But that ain't my point of view. Those
people can be useful to me. I need 'em. What do I care whether they want to
be useful to me or not? The machine'd have run down and rusted out long ago
if you and your friends' idea of a gentleman had been taken seriously by
anybody who had anything to do and knew how to do it. In this world you've
got to _make_ people do what's for your good and their own. Your
idea of a gentleman was put forward by lazy fakirs who were living off of
what their ungentlemanly ancestors had annexed, and who didn't want to be
disturbed. So they 'fixed' the game by passing these rules you and your
kind are fools enough to abide by--that is, you are fools, unless you
haven't got brains enough to get on in a free-and-fair-for-all."

Sam laughed.. "There's a lot of truth in what you say," he admitted.

"However," I ended, "my plans don't call for hurry just there. When I get
ready to go round, I'll let you know."

VII. BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING

This brings me to the ugliest story my enemies have concocted against me.
No one appreciates more thoroughly than I that, to rise high, a man must
have his own efforts seconded by the flood of vituperation that his enemies
send to overwhelm him, and which washes him far higher than he could hope
to lift himself. So I do not here refer to any attack on me in the public
prints; I think of them only with amusement and gratitude. The story that
rankles is the one these foes of mine set creeping, like a snake under the
fallen leaves, everywhere, anywhere, unseen, without a trail. It has been
whispered into every ear--and it is, no doubt, widely believed--that I
deliberately put old Bromwell Ellersly "in a hole," and there tortured him
until he consented to try to compel his daughter to marry me.

It is possible that, if I had thought of such a devilish device, I might
have tried it--is not all fair in love? But there was no need for my
cudgeling my brains to carry that particular fortification on my way to
what I had fixed my will upon. _Bromwell Ellersly came to me of his own
accord_.

I suppose the Ellerslys must have talked me over in the family circle.
However this may be, my acquaintance with her father began with Sam's
asking me to lunch with him. "The governor has heard me talk of you so
much," said he, "that he is anxious to meet you."

I found him a dried-up, conven