"Thanks for your help tonight, George. You pitched in so gladly, while the others were surly and grumbling. It was very noticeable, and I appreciate it. You're a good kid. Wish I had one just like you."
Hanlon flushed a bit, and couldn't meet his friend eye to eye. "I was glad to do it," he said lamely. "'Night," and he ran out. Blast it, he thought, I hate using Pete that way, 'cause he's really a swell egg underneath. But the job's more important.
A few nights later they had finished the second game, and the elder had won both. He was consequently in very good humor, for the two were so evenly matched it was seldom either ever won two games in the same evening.
Philander leaned back in his chair and smiled at the younger man. "Well, George, the freighter'll be here in three days, and I'm sending you back for your vacation."
"Gee, thanks, Chief. That's swell of you. I'm going to miss you, but I'll admit I'll be glad to get away from this awful climate for a while. This place sure gets my goat—I can't seem to get used to it all."
"Then you won't want to come back?" There was disappointment in the question.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I sure will be back if I can make it. Maybe this job isn't exactly what I'd dreamed about," he had to hedge that statement a bit, and tried to make a sincere-sounding explanation, "but that thousand credits a month is!"
"That reminds me—I want to be sure to recommend you for a good bonus. You deserve it more'n any guard we've ever had here. Then, too, your ideas of rotating your crew, and especially that fertilizer deal, have raised the effective work-life and speed of the natives almost thirty percent. I figured it out, and they'll be getting off cheap if they give you what I'm recommending—two months pay as a bonus."
"Yowie!" Hanlon yelled, making his face show excitement, and that curious avarice he had so carefully built up in these suspicious men's minds. "That'll make me six thou in four months. I'll be rich yet!"
"You and your urge for money," Philander laughed, yet there was a curious undertone of almost-contempt in his voice. "Why're you so hipped on that subject?"