any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionnaire is
better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of the
millionnaire. 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 millionnaire? 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 millionnaire. You must prove to me that I
can be more independent, more honest, more useful as a millionnaire, and
that I shall have better and truer friends!"