can. You could have plenty of flatterers, toadies,
sycophants--anything, in fine, but friends."

"I don't believe it," said Margaret, half angrily--"not a word of it.
There _must_ be some honest people in the world who don't consider
that money is everything. You know there must be, beautiful!"

The poet laughed. "That," said he, affably, "is poppycock. You are
repeating the sort of thing I said to you yesterday. I am honest now.
The best of us, Margaret, cannot help being impressed by the power of
money. It is the greatest power in the world, and we cannot--cannot
possibly--look upon rich people as being quite like us. We must
toady to them a bit, Margaret, whether we want to or not. The Eagle
intimidates us all."

"I _hate_ him!" Miss Hugonin announced, with vehemence.

Kennaston searched his pockets. After a moment he produced a dollar
bill and showed her the Eagle on it.

"There," he said, gravely, "is the original of the Woods Eagle--the
Eagle that intimidates us all. Do you remember what Shakespeare--one
always harks back to Shakespeare to clinch an argument, because not
even our foremost actors have been able to conceal the fact that he
was, as somebody in Dickens acutely points out, 'a dayvilish clever
fellow'--do you remember. I say, what Shakespeare observes as to this
very Eagle?"

Miss Hugonin shook her little head till it glittered in the sunlight
like a topaz. She cared no more for Shakespeare than the average woman
does, and she was never quite comfortable when he was alluded to.

"He says," Mr. Kennaston quoted, solemnly:
"The Eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wing
He can at pleasure still their melody."

"That's nonsense," said Margaret, calmly. "I haven't the _least_ idea
what you're talking about, and I don't believe you have either."

He waved the dollar bill with a heroical gesture. "Here," he asserted,
"is the Eagle. And by the little birds, I have not a doubt he meant
charity and independence and kindliness and truth and the rest of the
standard virtues. That is quite as plausible as the interpretation of
the average commentator. The presence of money chills these little
birds--ah, it is lamentable, no doubt, but it is true."

"I don't believe it," said Margaret--quite as if that settled the
question.

But now his hobby, rowelled by opposition, was spurred to loftier
flights.

"Ah, the power