“Do you belong in Port William, young man?”
“I don’t belong nowhere else, I reckon,” answered the seedy fellow, with shuffling impudence.
“Do you know where the county clerk’s office is?” asked Mr. Gray.
“Yes, and the market-house. I can show you the way to the jail, too, if you want to know; but I s’pose you’ve been there many a time,” laughed the “wharf rat.”
Gray was irritated at this rudeness, but he swallowed his anger.
“Would you like to make five dollars?”
“Now you’re talkin’ interestin’. Why didn’t you begin at that eend of the subjick? I’d like to make five dollars as well as the next feller, provided it isn’t to be made by too much awful hard work.”
“Can you run well?”
“If they’s money at t’other eend of the race I can run like sixty fer a spell. ’Tain’t my common gait, howsumever.”
“If you’ll take this paper,” said Gray, “and get it to the county clerk’s office before anybody else gets there from this boat, I’ll give you five dollars.”