Morals of Enterprise

"Your beggar," said he, somewhat abruptly, "has the only true feeling
of independence. Absolutely, I never knew till now what it was to
be thoroughly indifferent to what might come to-morrow. I positively
care for nothing. I am the first prince Sans Souci. That shall
be my title when I get among the Cumanches. I will have a code of
laws and constitution to suit my particular humor, and my chief
penalties shall be inflicted upon your fellows who grunt. A sigh
shall incur a week's solitary confinement; a sour look, pillory;
and for a groan, the hypochondriac shall lose his head! My prime
minister shall be the fellow who can longest use his tongue without
losing his temper; and the man who can laugh and jest shall always
have his plate at my table. Good-humored people shall have peculiar
privileges. It shall be a certificate in one's favor, entitling
him to so many acres, that he takes the world kindly. Such a man
shall have two wives, provided he can keep them peacefully in the
same house. His daughters shall have dowries from government. The
prince of Sans Souci will himself provide for them."

I made some answer, half jest, half earnest, in a mood of mocking
bitterness, which, perhaps, more truly accorded with the temper of
both of us. He did not perceive the bitterness, however.

"You jest, but mine is not altogether jest. Half-serious glimpses
of what I tell you float certainly before my eyes. Such things
may happen yet, and the southwest is the world in which you are yet
to see many wondrous things. The time must come when Texas shall
stretch to Mexico. These miserable slaves and reptiles--mongrel
Spaniards and mongrel Indians--can not very long bedevil that great
country. It must fall into other hands. It must be ours; and who,
when that time comes, will carry into the field more thorough claims
than mine. Master of myself, fearing nothing, caring for nothing;
with a gallant steed that knows my voice, and answers with whinny
and pricked ears to my encouragement; with a rifle that can clip
a Mexican--dollar or man--at a hundred yards, and a heart that can
defy the devil over his own dish, and with but one spoon between
us--and who so likely to win his principality as myself? Look to
see it, Clifford, I shall be a prince in Mexico; and when you hear
of the prince Sans Souci be assured you know the man. Seek me then,
and ask what you will. You have CARTE BLANCHE from this moment."