"Great heavens! Have you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. But he was."
"Well, anyhow, you shouldn't be ashamed of the story you have just told me."
"Why not? Do you refuse to allow me the great right of being like other men?"
"I think it was—brave, you know."
"Brave? Nonsense! Those things are not brave. Impression to that effect created by the men who have been through the mill for the greater glory of the men who have been through the mill."
"I don't like to hear you talk that way. It sounds wicked, you know."
"Well, it certainly wasn't heroic. I can remember distinctly that there was not one heroic moment."
"No, but it was—it was——"
"It was what?"