Mind you, I'm
not a listener, and under ordinary circumstances I'd have stopped up my
ears."
"It was kind of you to tell me, Pliny. I'll be more careful than ever
how I do things now. Mr. Graylock offered me a position in his store,
and told me to take off my coat and go to work; but as he only gave
three dollars a week I had to decline. I suppose he can't quite forgive
me for walking out. Perhaps I did say something a little sarcastic at
the time, but who could help it when a man had even gone so far as to
sneer at my father for declining to put his money into that store
business of his?"
"Served him just right--three dollars a week, eh? And they do say he
works his help like a mule driver. If that man doesn't get to be a
millionaire it will be because he is so small he makes mistakes that a
larger grained man never would. That is the law of compensation, my boy.
And I hate to say it, but Graylock ended up by warning Mr. Goodwyn that
if he were in his shoes he would keep a sharp eye on a boy who had had
no father these many years to train him right. That kind of hit me too,
and I couldn't help shaking my fist at the old curmudgeon through that
partition."
"It was a mean trick, if I do say it. I ought to be glad, I suppose,
that I happen to have nothing to do with Mr. Graylock. Even if he had
offered me living wages I hated to think of working for him.
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