“Call Silas Doolittle,” says Mark to me, and off I hustled. I was back in a second, dragging Silas after me.
“Silas,” says Mark, “do you owe Mr. Fugle for logs?”
“Why,” says Silas, kind of vague and walleyed, “I wouldn’t say. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Seems like I bought some logs off of him, and then again seems like I didn’t. What’s he got to say about it?”
“He claims you owe him n-n-nearly three hunderd d-dollars.”
“Does, eh? Well, I swan to man! Who’d ’a’ thought it? Well, well!”
“Do you owe it?”
“Fugle says so,” Silas says, “and I calc’late if he says so I do. Now I wonder how it come I never paid that?”
“You never had no money,” says old-man Fugle. “Be you goin’ to pay it now?”
“Ask him,” says Silas, pointing to Mark. “He knows.”
“We are,” says Mark, “but we haven’t the m-m-money to-night. We weren’t expectin’ a b-bill of this size.”