"I know my limit, John."
"D——d if I do! The old man would have enjoyed this. But, Van, take my advice and stay out. There ain't much in that political business. Stay with us and make some money. Right now is coming the biggest time this country has ever seen. And we are the crowd that's got the combination to the safe. These New York financiers think they are pretty near the whole thing, but I reckon we are going to give even them a surprise."
With this final boast, he got into his cab and drove off.
The day was brilliantly sunny, and the street was alive with gay people. What the Irishman said was true—I felt it in the sunny air: the greatest period of prosperity this country had ever seen was just starting. It was the time when two or three good gamblers could pick up any kind of property, give it a fine name, print a lot of pretty stock certificates, and sell their gold brick to the first comer. The people were crazy to spend their money. It was a great time! Nevertheless, at the bottom of all this craze was a sure feeling that all was well with us—that ours was a mighty people. And that was about right.
"And we are the crowd that's got the combination to the safe."
Well, I loved my country in my own way; and I had all the money I knew what to do with. Why not take a seat in "the millionnaires' club," as the newspapers called that honorable body, the United States Senate?
Before I left for the West the family sailed for Europe. Little May and sister Sarah, as we called the girls, had persuaded their mother to take them over to Paris for a lark. May, who was thirteen, was running the party. She was a tall, lively girl, with black hair and eyes, and was thought to resemble me. The other was quieter in her ways, more like Sarah. We had lost one little boy the summer before, which was a great sorrow to us all. The older boy, who was at school preparing for college, took after his mother, too. He was a pleasant-mannered chap, with a liking for good clothes and other playthings. I did not reckon that he ever would be much of a business man.