“Well, what about him?” asked Hicksley.
“Just this,” Bronson answered. “He’s just the fellow for this job. He’s got a hand cart, and that will make it easy for him. Then, too, a dollar will look as big to him as a meeting house. But even if he charges more than that we can all chip in and it won’t make very much for any of us.”
“I wouldn’t care if it cost us a dollar apiece,” said Jinks. “It would be worth it.”
They talked for a few minutes longer, and then decided that rather than let Hicksley do it alone they would all go down together to see Dago Joe.
But to their surprise, Joe was at first inclined to balk at the proposition. He was poor and had a large family to support and he needed every dollar he could get, but he seemed to fear that the plan that the bullies suggested might get him into trouble.
“I donta know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and extending the palms of his hands. “Perhaps people nota like it. Maybe I be arrest.”
“Nonsense, Joe,” said Bronson. “There isn’t a chance in the world that anybody will get on to who did it. It will be after dark anyway. Be a sport and take a chance.”
“We’ll make it two dollars,” said Jinks. “It’s easy money and you’d be a fool not to take it.”
Joe still had some qualms, but when the boys raised the price to three dollars his scruples vanished.
“You can get the stuff down near the roundhouse,” suggested Jinks. “There’s always plenty of it there.”