“No, I don’t.”
“Look here, Walter,” said Dan earnestly. “I don’t mean to preach to you. I know I’m only a countryman and you’ve had lots of chances that I haven’t. But if I had as clear and quick a mind as you have and then had such chances to develop it as you have here in this school, do you know what I’d do?”
“Yes. You’d buckle down to work.”
“I certainly should.”
“You don’t know everything, Dan,” said Walter, his pleasure at his roommate’s words arousing his good nature, as unstinted praise never failed to do. “I hate the stuff we’re getting here. Latin and algebra and physics! Bah! They make me sick. What good are they anyway? We’ll never use them again after we get out of this old trap.”
“Walter, did you ever see a fireman shoveling coal under the boiler of a locomotive?”
“Occasionally,” laughed Walter.
“What do you suppose he does it for?”
“Oh, for about sixty or seventy dollars a month.”