Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionaire is better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of the millionaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with the symbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may change; a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue or a western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what happens to your millionaire? Not knowing how to produce anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not always, somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table."
"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather.
"Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his roots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the earth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is quenched by heaven itself—and there's no tax on sunshine."
I paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was laughing.
"When you commiserate me, therefore" ("I'm sure I shall never do it again," said John Starkweather), "when you commiserate me, therefore, and advise me to rise, you must give me really good reasons for changing my occupation and becoming a millionaire. You must prove to me that I can be more independent, more honest, more useful as a millionaire, and that I shall have better and truer friends!"
John Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been absurdly eager and I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his hand on my knee (he has a wonderfully fine eye!).
"I don't believe," he said, "you'd have any truer friends."
"Anyway," I said repentantly, "I'll admit that millionaires have their place—at present I wouldn't do entirely away with them, though I do think they'd enjoy farming better. And if I were to select a millionaire for all the best things I know, I should certainly choose you, Mr. Starkweather."
He jumped up.
"You know who I am?" he asked.