"
Leaver laughed. "Red, there's nobody just like you," he said.
"That's lucky. Too many explosives aren't safe to have around. I know,
and have known all along, Jack, that it's been like a cat lecturing a
king, my advice to you. A better simile would be the old one of the mouse
gnawing the lion out of the net. If I've done anything for you, that's
what I've done."
Leaver turned in his seat. "Red," said he--and his voice had a deep ring
in it as he spoke--"you're about the biggest sized mouse I ever saw. I
want to tell you this: Since I've been watching your work up here I've
conceived a tremendous admiration for your standards. There are none
finer, anywhere. I've come to feel that you couldn't do anything bigger
or better in the largest place you could find. Indeed, this, for you, is
the largest place, for you fill it as another man couldn't."
"The frog, in the marsh, where he lived, was king," Burns quoted, in an
effort at lightness, for he was deeply touched.
"That's not the sort of king you are. You would be king anywhere. But
you're willing to rule over a kingdom that may look small to some, but
looks big as an empire to me, now that I understand. I've reached this
point: I am almost--and sometime I expect to be entirely--glad that the
thing happened to me which brought me here to you.
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