“And you are an expert! I receive six thousand a year, and I am only Assistant General Freight Agent, and have been but twelve years in the business. Then I may infer that these two gentlemen make much less than three thousand?”
“I’ve seen the week when I didn’t make hod-carrier’s wages,” growled Baxter, who had now finished eating, and was preparing to smoke a black wooden pipe.
“You’re not so sensible as I thought,” rejoined Mr. Braithwait, frankly. “I can easily imagine a man exposing himself to dreadful dangers and cruel privations when there is a great prize in view. An explorer like Stanley, a pioneer like Pike or Fremont, a conqueror like Cortez, or a revolutionist like Washington, could well brave hardship and peril when success meant wealth as well as the plaudits of their fellow men. The early settlers of this and every other country, the gold hunters of ’49, the pirates who ravaged the seas, all were actuated by the hope of a fortune at one swoop; but to risk prison, to say nothing of life itself, for a day laborer’s wages!——”
“But,” spoke up Montgomery, quickly, “there is fame, if not fortune.”
“Pardon me. In what way?”
“In the usual way. Who has not heard of Hickey, the man who cracked twenty banks before they tripped him up; Peters, the New England cracksman; Bronthers, the Chicago expert?”
“I hope,” said Mr. Braithwait, gently, “I won’t offend you when I say I never heard of those gentlemen.”
“Is it possible!”
“Honestly, I never did.”