"You're a stubborn young fool!" blurted the man in a burst of temper.
"I'm not doubtin' that either," grinned Toby. "I'm a bit stubborn whatever about not sellin' the fur. 'Tis for Dad to sell."
"All right. We'll call you stubborn and not a fool but foolish. That's what I mean to say. You're turning down the best offer you'll ever get for that skin, and your father will say so, and he would want you to sell it if he were here."
The man smiled in an effort to appear agreeable, though Charley thought there was something sinister and unpleasant in the curl of his lips.
"I'll not sell un whatever without Dad's tellin' me to sell un."
At his request Toby displayed to Marks his other pelts.
"I'll pay you twenty-five dollars apiece for your marten skins, and take them as they run," Marks offered. "That's cash I'm offering, not trade."
"I can't sell un," Toby declined. "We owes a debt at the Company shop, and we has to use un to pay the debt. They gives us thirty dollars for un there."
"But that's trade," said Marks. "I offer cash, and twenty-five in cash is more than thirty-five in trade."
"Not for us," objected Toby. "If we takes twenty-five dollars in cash we only buys twenty-five dollars' worth with un. If we trades un in we gets thirty dollars' worth with un, whatever."