“Well, even if that is so, why does the company pay him that to do that work?”
“To heat up the boiler and get up steam.”
“Precisely. He doesn’t shovel that coal to get more coal or because he expects to use that coal again, does he?”
“What are you driving at anyway?”
“I may be all wrong, but my idea is something like this—just as a fireman shovels the coal, not to get more coal but to get steam, so I think the work here is not to get things we’ll use again, but to get or do things that will give us——”
“Steam?” broke in Walter with a laugh.
“Yes, sir! That’s it exactly. I’ve a funny idea that when a fellow shirks or dodges his work he’s really the fellow to suffer. He doesn’t cheat the teacher half so much as he cheats himself. He’s just subtracting that much power from himself, that’s all.”
“Dan, you’re a funny chap.”
“I know it, but I don’t believe I’m half so ‘funny’ as the fellow is who throws away such chances as he has here in the Tait School.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if you were right. I wish I were like you, Dan. It’s easy for some fellows. But then you’ve got everything to get and I’ve got everything without any getting. My pater has more money than he knows what to do with; he’s got a big business and I’ll have a share in that by and by——”