“Do what works. That was the motto. Grab what you can when you can. That was the plan. It was not a golden age, as Mr. Twain had recently pointed out, but a cheap and flashy gilded one. A time of fakery and exuberant corruption, of patronage and cronyism and every species of shameless self-seeking. In such times, even honorable men give up trying to draw the line. It’s different now, they always think. Everything is different now.”
