“That’s the way you tell it,” interrupted Dave contemptuously. “All right. I just wanted to have the satisfaction of telling you that you and your father will rue the day you stuck your noses into our family’s business.”
“I am sorry for your father, Dave.”
“Bah! you can spare your pity. Maybe you’ll need it yourselves, you and your father. Wait till the tables turn.”
“All right,” said Ben simply. “You are wrong in your guesses, though, as to our having any ill will against your people.”
“I guess my father has a pull—huh! I guess so,” blurted out Dave, as Ben started to leave the spot. “He wouldn’t take back his job working about that dirty boiler and that greasy old engine, if they offered him double what he got. I’d have you know that my father is as good a master mechanic as yours is, any day.”
“I’ve heard that he’s a fine all-round machinist,” acknowledged Ben. “I would like to see him get right up to the top.”
“He’ll get there. Mark you, Ben Hardy, he’s after your father’s scalp, and he’s going to get it.”
“Fair play, and the best man wins,” answered our hero briefly.
“There’s more than that,” shouted Dave down the street after Ben. “My father could just set your father on his pegs. Will he do it? Nix! That’s going to be his revenge. Ha! ha! Old Saxton has bamboozled your father, and my father can produce the evidence——”
“Shut up, you chump!” growled the boy on the fence, jumping to the ground and rushing at Dave and silencing him. “Do you want to give the whole snap away?”