ney and my time, he
thinks I'm playing some cute game with him--tag or something that will
let him show how much cuter he is than I am. And he's supposed to be a
writer and have a little horse-sense! His brother claims it, anyhow. And
as for this other simp here," and now he was addressing the assembled
diners while nodding toward my friend, "it hasn't been three weeks since
he was begging to know what I could do for him. And now look at
him--entering into a petty little game of potato-cheating!

"I swear," he went on savagely, talking to the room in general,
"sometimes I don't know what to do with such damned fools. The right
thing would be to set these two, and about fifty others in this place,
out on the main road with their trunks and let them go to hell. They
don't deserve the attention of a conscientious man. I prohibit
gambling--what happens? A lot of nincompoops and mental lightweights
with more money than brains sneak off into a field of an afternoon on
the excuse that they are going for a walk, and then sit down and lose or
win a bucket of money just to show off what hells of fellows they are,
what sports, what big 'I ams.' I prohibit cigarette-smoking, not because
I think it's literally going to kill anybody but because I think it
looks bad here, sets a bad example to a lot of young wasters who come
here and who ought to be broken of the vice, and besides, because I
don't like cigarette-smoking here--don't want it and won't have it. What
happens? A lot of sissies and mamma's boys and pet heirs, whose fathers
haven't got enough brains to cut 'em off and make 'em get out and work,
come up here, sneak in cigarettes or get the servants to, and then hide
out behind the barn or a tree down in the lot and sneak and smoke like
a lot of cheap schoolboys. God, it makes me sick! What's the use of a
man working out a fact during a lifetime and letting other people have
the benefit of it--not because he needs their money, but that they need
his help--if all the time he is going to have such cattle to deal with?
Not one out of twenty or forty men that come here really wants me to
help him or to help himself. What he wants is to have some one drive him
in the way he ought to go, kick him into it, instead of his buckling
down and helping himself. What's the good of bothering with such damned
fools? A man ought to take the whole pack and run 'em off the place with
a dog-whip." He waved his hand in the air. "It's sickening. It'