Triscoe was fiercely chewing a morsel, as if in haste to take part in the discussion.  He gulped it, and broke out.  “Why should they care about us, anyway?”

March lightly ventured, “Oh, men and brothers, you know.”

“That isn’t sufficient ground.  The Chinese are men and brothers; so are the South-Americans and Central-Africans, and Hawaiians; but we’re not impatient for the latest news about them.  It’s civilization that interests civilization.”

“I hope that fact doesn’t leave us out in the cold with the barbarians?” Burnamy put in, with a smile.

“Do you think we are civilized?” retorted the other.

“We have that superstition in Chicago,” said Burnamy.  He added, still smiling, “About the New-Yorkers, I mean.”

“You’re more superstitious in Chicago than I supposed.  New York is an anarchy, tempered by vigilance committees.”

“Oh, I don’t think you can say that,” Kenby cheerfully protested, “since the Reformers came in.  Look at our streets!”

“Yes, our streets are clean, for the time being, and when we look at them we think we have made a clean sweep in our manners and morals.  But how long do you think it will be before Tammany will be in the saddle again?”

“Oh, never in the world!” said the optimistic head of the table.

“I wish I had your faith; or I should if I didn’t feel that it is one of the things that help to establish Tammanys with us.  You will see our Tammany in power after the next election.”  Kenby laughed in a large-hearted incredulity; and his laugh was like fuel to the other’s flame.  “New York is politically a mediaeval Italian republic, and it’s morally a frontier mining-town.  Socially it’s—­” He stopped as if he could not say what.

“I think it’s a place where you have a very nice time, papa,” said his daughter, and Burnamy smiled with her; not because he knew anything about it.

Her father went on as if he had not heard her.  “It’s as vulgar and crude as money can make it.  Nothing counts but money, and as soon as there’s enough, it counts for everything.  In less than a year you’ll have Tammany in power; it won’t be more than a year till you’ll have it in society.”

“Oh no!  Oh no!” came from Kenby.  He did not care much for society, but he vaguely respected it as the stronghold of the proprieties and the amenities.

“Isn’t society a good place for Tammany to be in?” asked March in the pause Triscoe let follow upon Kenby’s laugh.

“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be.  Society is as bad as all the rest of it.  And what New York is, politically, morally, and socially, the whole country wishes to be and tries to be.”

There was that measure of truth in the words which silences; no one could find just the terms of refutation.

“Well,” said Kenby at last, “it’s a good thing there are so many lines to Europe.  We’ve still got the right to emigrate.”