"I'm coming to that—wait. Now the idea of money grubbing is distasteful to me. What I want is a great opportunity which only money can give. I have, I suppose, if a conservative estimate could be made, pretty close to two million dollars—which means around one hundred thousand a year. Now if I want to settle down and marry, that's a lot; but if I want to go in and compete with other men, the leaders, that's nothing at all. Now the principal interest I've got ahead is the Morning Post; it's not all mine, but the controlling share is. It's a good conservative nursery rocking-horse. It can go rocking on for another twenty years, satisfied with its little rut. Now do you understand why I want more money? I want a million clear to throw into it. I don't want it to be a profitable high-class publication—I want it to be the paper in New York."
"But are you willing to go slow, to learn every rope first?" said Granning with a shake of his head.
"You know I am," said Marsh impatiently. "I've plugged at it harder than any one on the paper this summer and last too."
"Yes, you work hard—and play hard too," Granning admitted.
Marsh accepted the admission with a pleased smile and continued enthusiastically:
"Exactly. Win or lose, play the limit! That's my motto, and there's something glorious in it. I'm going to work hard, but I'm going to play just as hard. I want to live life to its fullest; I want to get every sensation out of it. And when I'm ready I'm going to make the paper a force, I'm going to make myself feared. I want to round myself out. I want to touch everything that I can, but above all I want to be on the fighting line. After this period of financial buccaneering there's going to come a great period—a radical period, the period of young men."
"Roscy, you want to be noticed," said DeLancy.
"I admit it. If you had what I have, wouldn't you? I repeat, I want the sensation of living in the big way. Granning shakes his head— I know what he's thinking."
"Roscy, you're a gambler," said Granning, but without saying all he thought.
"I am, but I'm going to gamble for power, which is different, and that's the first step to-day; that's what they all have done."