"I don't want to buy anything," the canny young man informed him.
"And I don't want to sell you anything," Anthony laughed, "but I do wish to present to you a proposition which will be of much interest."
This time, possibly not without warrant, the boy shrank unmistakably from him, hitching his collar a little higher and his cap a little farther down.
"It wouldn't interest me," he said with some finality. "I'm—just a poor lad, you know, and I haven't a cent to invest in anything."
"But you have an hour to invest, perhaps?" Anthony smiled.
"Nope!"
"Oh, yes, you have," the owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment persisted. "It is for no purpose of my own, save perhaps to justify a small contention, but I wish you to come home with me for a little while."
"What?" said the boy.
As Johnson Boller observed, sighing heavily and shaking his head as he observed it, the young man was downright scared now. An older citizen would have spoken his candid thoughts to Anthony Fry, doubtless, and chilled him back to reason; but this one drew away from Anthony until he bumped into Johnson Boller, turned hastily and asked the latter's pardon and then gazed at Anthony with eyes which, if not filled with terror, certainly held a quantity of somewhat amused apprehension.
He shook his head determinedly and seemed to be seeking words, and as he sought them a new element entered the situation. The red-faced person just behind Anthony Fry, having gazed suddenly from the youngster to the maker of theories, lurched forward suddenly and spoke: