eful
to me. What I want is a great opportunity which only money can give. I
have, I suppose, if a conservative estimate could be made, pretty close
to two million dollars--which means around one hundred thousand a year.
Now if I want to settle down and marry, that's a lot; but if I want to
go in and compete with other men, the leaders, that's nothing at all.
Now the principal interest I've got ahead is the _Morning Post_; it's
not all mine, but the controlling share is. It's a good conservative
nursery rocking-horse. It can go rocking on for another twenty years,
satisfied with its little rut. Now do you understand why I want more
money? I want a million clear to throw into it. I don't want it to be a
profitable high-class publication--I want it to be _the_ paper in New
York."

"But are you willing to go slow, to learn every rope first?" said
Granning with a shake of his head.

"You know I am," said Marsh impatiently. "I've plugged at it harder than
any one on the paper this summer and last too."

"Yes, you work hard--and play hard too," Granning admitted.

Marsh accepted the admission with a pleased smile and continued
enthusiastically:

"Exactly. Win or lose, play the limit! That's my motto, and there's
something glorious in it. I'm going to work hard, but I'm going to play
just as hard. I want to live life to its fullest; I want to get every
sensation out of it. And when I'm ready I'm going to make the paper a
force, I'm going to make myself feared. I want to round myself out. I
want to touch everything that I can, but above all I want to be on the
fighting line. After this period of financial buccaneering there's going
to come a great period--a radical period, the period of young men."

"Roscy, you want to be noticed," said DeLancy.

"I admit it. If you had what I have, wouldn't you? I repeat, I want the
sensation of living in the big way. Granning shakes his head-- I know
what he's thinking."

"Roscy, you're a gambler," said Granning, but without saying all he
thought.

"I am, but I'm going to gamble for power, which is different, and that's
the first step to-day; that's what they all have done."

"You haven't told us what your ambition is," said Bojo.

"I want to make of the _Morning Post_ not simply a great paper but a
great institution," said Marsh seriously. "I believe the newspaper can
be made the force that the church once was. Now the church was dominant
only as it entered into every side of th