rged
pretty high. Anyhow, here's my offer--"

Dick was satisfied, as was Fuller. The latter was often generous and
would not have taken unfair advantage of Dick's necessity, but he did not
object to engaging a talented young man at something below the market
rate.

"While I'm here you'll come over twice a week to report," he resumed.
"And now if there's anything you'd like to ask."

"First of all, I owe you a dollar," Dick remarked, putting the money on
the table. "The pay-clerk wouldn't take it, because he said it would mix
up his accounts. I'm glad to pay you back, but this doesn't cancel the
debt."

"It wasn't a big risk. I thought you looked played out."

"I was played out and hungry. In fact, it took me five minutes to make up
my mind whether I'd pay the agent who gave me your address his fee,
because it meant going without a meal."

Fuller nodded. "Did you hesitate again, after you knew you'd got the
job?"

"I did. When we were hustled on board the steamer, there was nobody at
the gangway for a few moments and I felt I wanted to run away. There
didn't seem to be any reason for this, but I very nearly went."

"That kind of thing's not quite unusual," Fuller answered with a smile.
"In my early days, when every dollar was of consequence, I often had a
bad time after I'd made a risky deal. Used to think I'd been a fool, and
I'd be glad to pay a smart fine if the other party would let me out. Yet
if he'd made the proposition, I wouldn't have clinched with it."

"Such vacillation doesn't seem logical, in a man," Ida interposed. "Don't
you practical people rather pride yourselves on being free from our
complexities? Still I suppose there is an explanation."

"I'm not a philosopher," Fuller replied. "If you have the constructive
faculty, it's your business to make things and not examine your feelings;
but my explanation's something like this--When you take a big risk you
have a kind of unconscious judgment that tells you if you're right, but
human nature's weak, and scares you really don't believe in begin to
grip. Then it depends on your nerve whether you make good or not."

"Don't they call it sub-conscious?" Ida asked. "And how does that
judgment come?"

"I guess it's built up on past experience, on things you've learned long
since and stored away. In a sense, they're done with, you don't call them
up and argue from them; but all the same, they're the driving force when
you set your teeth and go ahead."