Fair's Fair

I've begun reading Dick Francis's novels, thanks to a recommendation by Jennifer Crusie, and I just finished High Stakes.  There's a passage in it that I immediately wanted to share.  (The online equivalent of reading a passage aloud to one's housemate.)  The narrator, a self-made rich man who owns some racing horses, has been beaten up and injected with gin by the bad guys, then left on a street for the police to pick up.  His appearance in court for public intoxication is picked up by the tabloids.  After he gets back home:

I spent the whole morning on the telephone straightening out the chaos.  Organizing car repairs and arranging a  hired substitute.  Telling my bank manager and about ten assorted others that I had lost checkbook and credit cards.  Assuring various inquiring relatives, who had all of course read the papers, that I was neither in jail nor dipsomaniacal.  Listening to a shrill lady, whose call inched in somehow, telling me it was disgusting for the rich to get drunk in gutters.  I asked her if it was okay for the poor, and if it was, why should they have more rights than I.  Fair's fair, I said.  Long live equality.  She called me a rude word and rang off.  It was the only bright spot of the day.