ou haven't _got_ any speed laws there. It's your road. You
own it, see? It's what it is because you've made it so, just to please
yourself, and to hell with the hicks that have to leg it! But--you lose
out on that side even when you think you've won. You get exactly what
you go after, but you don't get any more, and so you lose out. Why?
Because you're an egg-sucker and a nest-robber and a shrike, and a
four-flusher and a piker, that's why!

"The first road don't give you anything you can put your hands on;
except that you think and hope maybe there's that light at the end of
it. But, parson, I guess if _you're_ man enough to foot it without a
pay-envelope coming in on Saturdays, why, it's plenty good enough for
_me_--and Kerry. But while I'm legging it I'll keep a weather eye
peeled for crooks. That big blonde he-god is one of 'em. You soak that
in your thinking-tank: he's one of 'em!"

"But look at what he's doing!" said I, aghast. "What he's doing is
_good_. Even Laurence couldn't ask for more than good results, could
he?"

The Butterfly Man smiled.

"Don't get stung, parson. Why, you take me, myself. Suppose, parson,
you'd been on the other side, like Hunter is, when I came along? Suppose
you'd never stopped a minute, since you were born, to think of anything
or anybody but yourself and your own interests--where would I be to-day,
parson? Suppose you had the utility-and-nothing-but-business bug biting
you, like that skate's got? Why, what do you suppose you'd have done
with little old Slippy? I was considerable good business to look at
then, wasn't I? No. You've got to have something in you that will let
you take gambler's chances; you've got to be willing to bet the limit
and risk your whole kitty on the one little chance that a roan will come
out right, if you give him a fair show, just because he _is_ a man; or
you can't ever hope to help just when that help's needed. Right there is
the difference between the Laurence-and-you sort and the Hunter-men,"
said John Flint, obstinately.

As for Laurence, he and Hunter met continually, both being in constant
social demand. If Laurence did not naturally gravitate toward that
bright particular set of rather rapid young people which presently
formed itself about the brilliant figure of Hunter, the two did not
dislike each other, though Hunter, from an older man's sureness of
himself, was the more cordial of the two. I fancy each watched the
other more guardedly than