“I am still young—not very young either, for I will soon be forty—but I know no young man who has better prospects than myself, and few who have done so well. I suppose I am worth now nearly $100,000 in good money. I have more gold coin than I know what to do with. The Examiner is very valuable property, and is destined to be much more so. I expect to live long, and if I do, I shall be rich. When I am rich, I shall buy the old family estate in Stafford County, and shall add to it all the land for miles around. I shall build a house to my fancy, and, with all my possessions walled in, I shall teach these people what they never knew—how to live like a gentleman."{1}
{Footnote 1: This paragraph is in Mr. J.M. Daniel’s words.}
The glow had deepened on the sallow face. It was easy to see that the speaker had unfolded to me the dream of his life.
“Your scheme is one,” I said, “which takes my fancy greatly. But why do you intend to wall in your property?”
“To keep out those wolves called men.”
“Ah! I forgot. You do not like those bipeds without feathers.”
“I like some of them, colonel; but the majority are worse than my dogs, Fanny and Frank, yonder. Sometimes I think they are human—they bite each other so!”
I laughed. There was something piquant in the grim humor of this singular personage.
“What is your ideal man?” I said, “for, doubtless, you have such an ideal?”
“Yes. I like a man of bronze, who does not snivel or weep. I like Wigfall for his physique and his magnificent courage. It is the genuine thing. There is no put on there. He has native pluck—the actual article—and it is no strain on him to exhibit it. The grit is in him, and you can’t shake him."{1}