"I'm willing to leave that entirely to you, sir. I am sure you will pay me all I am worth to the bank," said Dick, simply.
He could not have made a more diplomatic reply had he been a schemer instead of a frank single-minded lad.
"Good again. I begin to think that it was a fine thing for all of us that Charles overslept so frightfully yesterday. We paid him eight dollars a week to begin with, Richard."
"Yes, sir. I shall be very glad to receive that, if you consider that I can fill the bill."
"But, for the last two months we have been paying Charles ten. Now, I am of the opinion that you are going to be even more valuable in the start than he was at the finish of his banking career, so I shall instruct the bookkeeper to put you on the payroll at ten dollars. That will do for the present, Richard. I am going to take a personal interest in your progress. I knew your father, my boy, and respected him highly."
"Thank you, sir," said Dick, as he withdrew; and there were tears in his eyes which he had to wink very hard to dry out; but it was not the fact that he was to receive such splendid wages at the beginning of his business career that affected him half so much as this constant allusion to the honorable name his father had left behind as a heritage for his son.
Thomas Morrison might not have been able to lay up a fortune before he was called to another world; but he had at least won for himself the regard and esteem of his neighbors during all the years he labored in and around Riverview.
Presently Dick was being instructed in his duties by one of the friendly tellers.
While this was going on the cashier came out of his little room.
"Who's this boy, Payson?" he asked, frowning at Dick.