“Yay!” cried the other, joyously. “Didn't he go and hand me a dollar!”
“How much will you take not to tell him that I stopped you and read it; how much not to speak of me at all?”
“What?”
“It's a foolish kind of joke, nothing more. I'll give you five dollars never to tell anyone that you saw me today.”
“Don't shoot, Colonel,” exclaimed the youth, with a riotous fling of bare feet in the air, “I'll come down!”
“You'll do it?”
“Five!” he shouted, dancing upon the boards. “Five! I'll cross my heart to die I never hear tell of you, or ever knew they was sich a man in the world!”
Carewe bent over him. “No! Say: 'God strike me dead and condemn me eternally to the everlasting flames of hell if I ever tell!”
This entailed quick sobriety, though only benevolence was in the face above him. The jig-step stopped, and the boy pondered, frightened.
“Have I got to say that?”