“No good,” was the laconic comment of the old gentleman. “Those sentiments might have been all right a hundred years ago, but they are not up to date. Honest Integrity, when he has been in a firm long enough, say all the best years of his life, gets promoted by getting the sack, because his salary looks too big, and they can get a younger man to do his work for half the money. As for the ‘early to bed’ racket, I never knew any one but labourers and poor devils who could not help it that stuck to that game. And the ‘penny saved’ is no better; you have not got the value of that penny till you have eaten it, or spent it in some other pleasing fashion. A penny saved and put of course, in a bank that goes bung is a mug’s game. Why, all this kind of foolishness you are talking is the ruin of hundreds of promising lads; and it’s just unlearning it all and reading it the other way about that is called experience.”
“But you don’t mean to say,” urged Huey, “that honesty is not the best policy?”
“Oh, no,” said the old gentleman, “honesty is a good line, particularly for a cashier or a trustee. Be as honest as the day, you gain confidence; and then sooner or later you can clear to America with a good swag. Yes, honesty is a paying game, properly conducted.”
Hubert smiled aside to Alec. The old gentleman was either wrong in his head or was trying to take a rise out of them.
“I don’t suppose you know who I am,” continued the old gentleman. “I am called Soft Sam, or Old Sam, and I have put more successful men on the right track than any other man in Sydney. Men as green as you are, some of them; now owning houses there” (pointing to Macquarie Street) “and stores there” (pointing to Circular Quay).
“And do all the chaps you help do well?” inquired Alec.
“No, they don’t; and I’ll tell you why. After getting along all right with the start I give them they get so cocky, they think they are too clever to come to me again, and sooner or later they make a hash of it. There are several of them over there” (jerking his thumb towards Darlinghurst); “but it’s all their own foolishness, and thinking they could run before they could walk. But this is dry work talking; let us go and have a wet.”
They went towards the gate, the young men wondering what kind of a man this Soft Sam might be. Presently the old man spoke again—
“Bless me!” and he clapped his hands in both his pockets. “I have not got a copper on me!”
“Ah, now we are coming to it,” thought Huey; “he will want to borrow money.”