“Haven't you ever heard of Vanderbilt?”
“Of course I have. Father says he's worth forty millions.”
“Don't you consider him a gentleman?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, he was a poor boy once, and used to ferry passengers across from Staten Island to New York.”
“Did he? I didn't know that.”
“Suppose my uncle had left me all his fortune—a hundred thousand dollars—would I have been a gentleman, then?”
“Yes, but it isn't the same as, if you had always been rich.”
“I don't agree with your ideas, James. It seems to me something besides money is needed to make a gentleman; still, I hope to get on in the world, and I shouldn't object to being rich, though I don't see any prospect of it just at present.”
“No,” said James. “You will probably always be poor.”