 Why did the recruiter offer Lawrence $50 Galactic a week?
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented office. My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise in front of me. The aliens came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of them eager for a Corrigan contract. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until 2937, so don't miss your chance! Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand languages, always bring them running. I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into the other office to sign him up. But just because we needed him didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. He was followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet, four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at anything short of top rate. It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Before then, anyone could visit Earth. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids, fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
 He was able to offer him less, knowing he would still accept and be grateful.
 That was what was promised to all travelers to Earth for display.  He was able to offer him less, knowing he would still accept and be grateful.  He could be paid less because he was smaller and less of an attraction.  He would be paid less because he would also be reimbursed for expenses and have free travel.