"Who—whoop!" shouted the pilot through the trumpet. "Anything for Columbia?"
"Yes!" yelled Murray. "Walker, go out and warn the passengers who are to get off there, and I'll see to the freight."
Walker left the office, and Murray took possession of the stool he had just vacated.
"I shouldn't think you would like to have so much money in your charge," said George.
"Well, we do sometimes deposit it in the bank and take a check on St. Louis for it. That's the better plan, but I was too busy to do it, and besides I didn't know just how much I might want to use during the trip. Another thing, I never heard of money being stolen from the office of a steamboat. I don't suppose you could open the safe if I should give you the key, could you?"
"I am sure I couldn't," answered George. "I don't know the combination."
"I'll give it to you," said Murray.
"That wouldn't be right, would it?" asked George, doubtfully. "Suppose the safe should be robbed, and folks knew that I was acquainted with the combination. What would they think about it?"
"Folks would never know anything it; and besides, as soon as you had opened the safe, I should lock it again on another combination, and take good care of the key," said the clerk, with a laugh. "Here, try it just for fun. It's all in the family."
George, having never done business for any body except himself, did not know that business men, and their clerks, too, if they are honest, are very particular about their safes, and that they never, under any circumstances, invite outsiders to tamper with them. He did not know that the most of them lay so much stress on this point, that whenever they go into an office where there is an open safe, they take care to keep away from it; but it seems as if his common sense ought to have told him that he was doing what he ought not to do, when he picked up the key that Murray took out of his pocket and laid on his desk, inserted it into the lock, and went to work on the combination the latter had given him, which, by the way, was not the right one.