"I am new to the city and want a guide. Are you open to an engagement?"
"Yes, sir," answered Rupert, with a smile. "But I don't care for pay."
"Then we don't go. Business is business, and there is no reason why I should take up your time without paying you a fair sum."
"Just as you like, sir."
The two spent the next three or four hours in visiting different objects of interest in New York. The Colorado man seemed much pleased with his young companion.
"You must come out to Colorado some time, Rupert," he said. "You are a boy who would succeed there, or indeed anywhere. We have some men come out there who are failures at the East, and they are surprised that they don't succeed in the West. But I tell you that it takes as much brains to win success in Colorado as in New York."
"Is that always the case? I have heard of men getting rich in the West who were poor at home."
"That is true. Perhaps they were in the wrong business. I don't mind saying that was the case with me. I was in the insurance business in Hartford, but I wasn't particularly well adapted for it. I couldn't talk. Out in Colorado I have learned to understand cattle, and they have made me rich."
"Mr. Clayton can talk."
"Yes, a little too well. Unfortunately he is not honest, and a dishonest man ought not to thrive anywhere. In Colorado he wouldn't live wrong. Thieves are summarily dealt with."