And now
he's dead, and all his fortune belongs to Master Albert, who never did
a stroke of work in his life, and isn't 'fit' enough to be a ten-
dollar-a-week clerk. And you come along and lie down for him to walk
on, and the more nails he has in his boots the better you like it! And
there's the whole story for you!"
Samuel had been listening awe-stricken. The abysmal depths of his
ignorance and folly!
"Now he's got his money," said the other--"and he means to keep it. So
there are the bulls, to slam you over the head if you bother him.
That's called the Law! And then he hires some duffer to sit up and
hand you out a lot of dope about your being 'unfit'; and that's called
a College! Don't you see?"
"Yes," whispered Samuel. "I see!"
His companion stabbed at him with his finger. "All that was wrong with
you, Sammy," he said, "was that you swallowed the dope! That's where
your 'unfitness' came in! Why--take his own argument. Suppose you
hadn't given up. Suppose you'd fought and won out. Then you'd have
been as good as any of them, wouldn't you? Suppose, for instance,
you'd hit that son-of-a-gun over the head with a poker and got away
with his watch and his pocketbook--then you'd have been 'fitter' than
he, wouldn't you?"
Samuel had clutched at the arms of his chair and was staring with
wide-open eyes.
"You never thought of that, hey, Sammy? But that's what I found myself
facing a few years ago.
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