“You trying to pull a polite hold-up? I’ll ride over your remains, son, if you don’t drop that bridle and let me——”
“Until you pay what you owe, I mean.”
Pape tweaked a sunburned ear in puzzling the thickened plot. “Haven’t I said I was more than willing to pay you——”
“Pay the company, not me, Mr. Pape.”
“The com——What company?”
“The New York Edison Company.”
Indignantly the Westerner stared down into the vacuous face of this latest impediment to progress.
“You’re an agent for—for phonographs?” he guessed. “Sorry, but I’ve got more of those sing-tanks around home than I can spare ears to hear ’em. Lay off my horse! You can’t sell me anything this afternoon.”
“B-but, wait a minute!” The Edison emissary continued to earn his salary by the way he hung on. “You’ve already bought all I’m asking you to pay for. Unless it’s inconvenient—if you’d only take a minute off and settle——”
“Inconvenient—unless?” Pape was beginning to fear a loss of self-control.