I had shown them I could spend with the best of them.

Amongst strong men I had proved myself strong.

I had clinched again, as I had often clinched, my right to the title of "Prince." Also, my attitude may be considered, in part, as a reaction from my childhood's meagreness and my childhood's excessive toil.
Possibly my inchoate thought was: Better to reign among booze-fighters a prince than to toil twelve hours a day at a machine for ten cents an hour.

There are no purple passages in machine toil.

But if the spending of one hundred and eighty dollars in twelve hours isn't a purple passage, then I'd like to know what is.
Oh, I skip much of the details of my trafficking with John Barleycorn during this period, and shall only mention events that will throw light on John Barleycorn's ways.