"I am absolutely certain. I speak positively, but not rashly."

Blennerhassett nodded slowly, three or four times, and Burr spoke on.

"That the investment will prove enormously profitable I have not the
shadow of a shade of doubt. General Wilkinson knows the property, and
so do I. There are more than a million acres to be had for fifty
thousand dollars. The present value is ten times that amount."

"If the inquiry is not impertinent, sir, have you organized a joint
stock company? Have you completed your plans?"

"Practically, everything is arranged. Negotiations are afoot. The
necessary capital will be forthcoming. We take no risk. To you I will
say, in confidence, that the number of shareholders will be severely
limited. You know how desirable it is, in partnerships of this kind,
to admit only men of unimpeachable honor."

Again Blennerhassett nodded three or four times, like an automaton.
Burr, affecting to dismiss the topic, turned again to the book-shelves
and fell to reading the gilded titles. A copy of "The Prince" arrested
his eye. Taking this down, he opened it at random, and read aloud:
"Men will always prove bad, unless by necessity they are compelled to
be good."

"What do you think of that as an estimate of human nature?"

"Abominable!"

Burr fluttered the leaves of the famous treatise and came upon this
sentence, marked by a pen: "It is of great consequence to disguise
your inclination and to play the hypocrite well; and men are so simple
in their temper and so submissive, that he that is neat and cleanly in
his collusions shall never want people to practice upon."

"Why did you mark that passage?"

"To condemn the doctrine. The hypocrite can never thrive; the plain,
honest man always sees through the disguise. Virtue is all-seeing, but
fraud is blind."

"You mint apothegms, sir. It is an intellectual feast to hear you
talk."

Burr replaced Machiavelli on its shelf, confronted his host, and, in a
tone deferential and almost apologetic, said, "You must not accuse me
of flattery, sir, when I bluntly charge you with defrauding the world
and robbing that humanity which you profess to love."

"I can't find any flattery in such accusation. Kindly explain what you
mean. Whom do I defraud? and how is it flattery to charge a man with
insincerity?"

"Well, you seem to me to be evading your duty to the world, by hiding
from its great public interests, enterprises and conflicts. You linger
here, a m