ut of the factor of human nature; requiring another man
to do what you wouldn't do yourself."

"Do you mean--"

"Why here's what I mean; it's very simple. Tompkins is a blacksmith; has
a family; works for wages; and hard, too--fooling around won't furnish
the bread. Suppose it should turn out that by the death of somebody in
England he is suddenly an earl--income, half a million dollars a year.
What would he do?"

"Well, I--I suppose he would have to decline to--"

"Man, he would grab it in a second!"

"Do you really think he would?"

"Think?--I don't think anything about it, I know it."

"Why?"

"Because he's not a fool."

"So you think that if he were a fool, he--"

"No, I don't. Fool or no fool, he would grab it. Anybody would.
Anybody that's alive. And I've seen dead people that would get up and go
for it. I would myself."

"This was balm, this was healing, this was rest and peace and comfort."

"But I thought you were opposed to nobilities."

"Transmissible ones, yes. But that's nothing. I'm opposed to
millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position."

"You'd take it?"

"I would leave the funeral of my dearest enemy to go and assume its
burdens and responsibilities."

Tracy thought a while, then said:

"I don't know that I quite get the bearings of your position. You say
you are opposed to hereditary nobilities, and yet if you had the chance
you would--"

"Take one? In a minute I would. And there isn't a mechanic in that
entire club that wouldn't. There isn't a lawyer, doctor, editor, author,
tinker, loafer, railroad president, saint-land, there isn't a human being
in the United States that wouldn't jump at the chance!"

"Except me," said Tracy softly.

"Except you!" Barrow could hardly get the words out, his scorn so
choked him. And he couldn't get any further than that form of words;
it seemed to dam his flow, utterly. He got up and came and glared upon
Tracy in a kind of outraged and unappeasable way, and said again, "Except
you!" He walked around him--inspecting him from one point of view and
then another, and relieving his soul now and then by exploding that
formula at him; "Except you!" Finally he slumped down into his chair
with the air of one who gives it up, and said:

"He's straining his viscera and he's breaking his heart trying to get
some low-down job that a good dog wouldn't have, and yet wants to let on
that if he had a chance to scoop an