Part 34 (2/2)
”Well, perhaps you may come a little earlier, say about half-past nine,”
said the book-keeper.
”All right,” said Roswell.
Being rather sanguine, he made up his mind that he was going to have the place, and felt it difficult to keep his good fortune secret. Now, in the next house there lived a boy named Edward McLean, who was in a broker's office in Wall Street, at a salary of six dollars a week. Now, though Edward had never boasted of his good fortune, it used to disturb Roswell to think that his place and salary were so much superior to his own. He felt that it was much more respectable to be in a broker's office, independent of the salary, than to run around the city with heavy bundles. But if he could enter such an establishment as Rockwell & Cooper's, at a salary of ten dollars, he felt that he could look down with conscious superiority upon Edward McLean, with his six dollars a week.
He went over to his neighbor's, and found Edward just starting for Wall Street.
”How are you, Roswell?” said Edward.
”Pretty well. Are you going down to the office?”
”Yes.”
”You've got a pretty good place,--haven't you?”
”Yes, I like it.”
”How much do you get?”
”Six dollars a week.”
”That's very fair,” said Roswell, patronizingly.
”How do you like your place?” asked Edward. ”I believe you're in a dry-goods store on Sixth Avenue.”
”Oh, no,” said Roswell.
”You were?”
”Yes, I went in temporarily to oblige them,” said Roswell, loftily; ”but, of course, I wouldn't engage to remain any length of time in such a place, however large the inducements they might offer.”
Considering Roswell's tone, it would hardly have been supposed that the large inducements were four dollars a week, and that, even at that compensation, his services were not desired.
”Then it wasn't a good place?” said Edward.
”Well enough for such as liked it,” said Roswell. ”I have no complaint of Hall & Turner. I told them that it was not dissatisfaction with them that led me to leave the place, but I preferred a different kind of business.”
”Have you got another place?”
”I have an offer under consideration,” said Roswell, consequentially; ”one of the most solid firms in the city. They offer me ten dollars a week.”
”Ten dollars a week!” repeated Edward, somewhat staggered by the statement. ”That's big pay.”
”Yes,” said Roswell; ”but I think I ought to get as much as that.”
<script>