“Darkie Patt?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t work with him. Have nothin’ to do with him. Wouldn’t lean a ladder ag’in’ the same buildin’ he was leanin’ a ladder agin.
“That’s what he says about you,” Catty says.
“Eh?”
“He says you can’t paint, nohow,” says Catty. “He says he was willin’ to work, but that if you was on the same job he’d want twice the wages you was gittin’ because he could paint twice as much and twice as well with one hand.”
“Did, did he?”
“Yes, but I says I didn’t think so, and I says I’d like to have a chance to prove it. It was a kind of a challenge to a paintin’-race. Yes, sir. I says to Mr. Patt that I’d start him out paintin’ on one side and you on the other. Even start. Then there’d be a race betwixt you two to see who could do the most and the best. Yes, sir, and there was to be a prize. Five dollars it was to the feller that got his side done first.”
“You mean Patt was willin’ to race me?”
“He’ll race you, all right.”