They have lied long enough.
I have lied long enough.
My motives are really rather high and I am going to admit it.
And the higher they are (when I have hustled about and got the necessary brains to go with them) the better they have worked.
Nine times out of ten when they have not worked, it has been my fault.
Sometimes it is John Doe's fault.
I am going to speak to John Doe about it. I am going to tell him what I am driving at. I have turned over a new leaf. In the crisis of a great nation and as an act of last desperate patriotism, I am going to give up looking modest.
For a long time now I have wanted to dare to come out and stand up before this Modesty Bug-a-boo and have it out with it and say what I think of it, as one of the great, still, sinister threats against our having or getting a real national life in America.
I knew a boy once who grew so fast that his mother always kept him wearing shoes three sizes too large, and big, hopeful-looking coats and trousers. Except for a few moments a year he never caught up. Nobody ever saw that boy and his long shoes when he was not butting bravely about, stubbing his toes on the world and turning up his sleeves.
It was a great relief to him and everybody, finally, when he grew up.