“I thought you were going to be an engineer yourself,” queried Philip. “Not many times, if the court knows herself. There’s better game. Brown and Schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the Salt Lick Pacific Extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the prairie, with extra for hard-pan—and it’ll be pretty much all hardpan I can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line.
Harry's desire to become a wealthy railway contractor contrasts with Philip's honest way of living. Harry lays out the get-rich-quick mentality of the era.