“They always used to be,” Roy replied, “but I guess the new crop is different.”
“Yes, they’re degenerating,” Chub added. “It’s the same way with Presidents. It used to be that you couldn’t be President unless you had been a poor boy and had worked on a farm. But look at the Presidents nowadays! Just ordinary rich men! Why, most anybody can be President now!”
“There’s a chance for you, Chub,” suggested Roy. “You never split a rail in your life.”
“And I’m sure he never studied by the light of a log-fire,” laughed Dick.
“I think it’s beautiful about Abraham Lincoln,” said Harry wistfully. “I wish I had been born a poor boy so I could have done the way he did and been President of the United States, and had a birthday after I was dead, with flags and speeches and—and things!”
“I suppose if you were President,” said Chub, “you’d make Methuselah Secretary of State, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, and you could be Secretary of the Navy, and Dick, Secretary of War, and Roy—”
“Secretary of Agriculture,” Dick suggested.
“No, I’d make him my private secretary.”