A MEMORABLE MEETING In that administration the man "next" the President was his Secretary of the Treasury, John Branch, cold and smooth and able, secreting, in his pale-gray soul, an icy passion for power more relentless than heat ever bred.

To speak of him as unscrupulous would be like attributing moral quality to a reptile.

For him principle did not exist, except as an eccentricity of some strangely-constructed men which might be used to keep them down.

Life presented itself to him as a series of mathematical problems, as an examination in mathematics.

To pass it meant a diploma as a success; to fail to pass meant the abysmal disgrace of obscurity.
Cheating was permissible, but not to get caught at it.