"Neither your enemies or mine would run the risk of murdering us in
open day; but suppose they could kill us by simply _wishing it?_ I
should drop down dead before your eyes--and you would fall a corpse in
Main Street before you reached your home!"[1]
[Footnote 1: His words.]
"A gloomy view enough, but I dare not deny it."
"It would be useless, colonel. That is the way men are made. For
myself, I distrust all of them--or nearly all."
He uttered the words with intense bitterness, and for a moment remained
silent.
"This is gloomy talk," he said, "and will not amuse you. Let us change
the topic. When I am not discussing public affairs--the doings of this
wretched administration, and the old man of the sea astride upon the
country's back--I ought to try and amuse myself."
"You find the _Examiner_ a heavy weight upon you?"
"It is a mill-stone around my neck."[1]
[Footnote 1: His words.]
"Why not throw it off, if you find it onerous?"
"Because I look to this journal as a father does to an only son--as my
pet, my pride, and the support and honor of myself and my name in the
future."
"You are proud of it."
"It has made me, and it will do more for me hereafter than it has ever
done yet."
He paused, and then went on, with a glow in his swarthy face:
"Every man has his cherished object in this world, colonel.
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