"Good stock up there in Massachusetts," said Harry boldly, "but I've one objection to you."
"What's that?"
"Everything wonderful in our history was done by you. No chance was left for anybody else."
"Well, not everything, but almost everything. Good old Massachusetts! As Webster said, 'There she stands!'"
"It was mostly New York and Pennsylvania that stood at Gettysburg."
"Yes, you did very well there."
"Don't you think, Captain, that a nation or a state is often lucky in its possession of writers?"
"I don't catch your drift exactly."
"I'll make an illustration. I've often wondered what were the Persian accounts of Marathon and Thermopylae, of Salamis and Plataea. Now most of our history has been written by Massachusetts men."
"And you insinuate that they have glorified my state unduly?"