7 I am getting too old to wake up in train stations; I am too proud to spend so much time on my knees before your aporcelain altar.
8 Au revoir, O Spirits: we must stay in touch, but nothing like before.
9 Is that all right with you, O Spirits? O, I'm so glad.
CHAPTER 531 And what shall the Master of Money do when he tires of pleasure? What new excitement can he find to make life less tedious?
2 bIs it possible that life has only a finite quantity of enjoyment to offer any man? Is even the Master of Money to be held hostage by the poverty of creation itself?
3 Verily, this cannot be so: for when the senses have been sated, the wise man learns to reap the pleasures of the mind.
4 Yea, these are pleasures which are greater than the mere candy for which the senses long: cfor how can bonbons and French pastry compare to the transcendent rapture of Power?
5 The weak man may believe himself in the lap of the gods when he gives himself over to passive immersion in the delights of the flesh; dbut the strong man knows that it is much more fun to make the ground tremble beneath his feet when he walks.
6 eThere may be many who rise to become Masters of Money; but how many have the strength to become the Master of All?
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7 fHow many have the sheer Power to reduce other Masters of Money to penury, and to take their territories from them, just for the thrill of doing it?
8 gHow many can disdain the consequences of the risks they take in the name of increased Power? How many are so great that such risks are repaid by the knowledge of another's fear, another's defeat, another's abject surrender, especially when such others are impudent hWop scum from the wrong side of the tracks?
9 Yes, behave wisely in the presence of the Master of All: he cannot be bought off with mere Money, nor seduced with mere Pleasure; he must be given the Power he demands.
CHAPTER 541 Why would any man waste the few precious hours after his workday on other diversions, when he could enjoy the company of one who is skilled in the use of words?
2 iTruly, it is a wonder that so many Masters of Money do not learn to refine their tastes, and continue to throw away their cash on jmercenary torch singers and kback-row dollies from the burlesque!
3 Yes, give me instead the delight of a woman who knows how to speak the words of love: leach of her words makes the ear into the greatest of musical instruments, playing rhapsodies in a breathless and tantalizing whisper.
4 Who would have thought mere words could bring so much pleasure? Not the Master of Money, that's for sure.
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