"I wish you would tell me how to do it. I have worked like an
all-the-year-round blast furnace ever since I could creep, and never
slighted a job yet, but here I am--can't call my soul my own. I have
saved fifteen thousand dollars, but that ain't enough to stop with. I
don't see why I don't own a county too."

"There's some luck about it. And then I don't believe you look very sharp
for opportunities. I suppose you are too busy. You've got a chance this
minute to turn your fifteen thousand to fifty; maybe lot more."

"I'm afraid I'm too thick-headed to see it."

"Why, what you found out this morning was the straightest kind of a
straight tip on the wheat market for the next two months. A big elevator
like yours will be almost decisive. The thing's right in your own hands.
If Page & Company can't make that delivery, why, fellows who buy wheat now
are going to make money."

"I see," said Bannon, quickly. "All I'd have to do would be to buy all the
wheat I could get trusted for and then hold back the job a little. And
while I was at it, I might just as well make a clean job and walk off with
the pay roll." He laughed. "I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, going to old
MacBride with my tail between my legs, telling him that the job was too
much for me and I couldn't get it done on time. He'd look me over and say:
'Bannon, you're a liar. You've never had to lay down yet, and you don't
now. Go back and get that job done before New Year's or I'll shoot you.'"

"You don't want to get rich, that's the trouble with you," said Sloan, and
he said it almost enviously.