“You can bet your bottom dollar!” said the merchant, turning again and running his hands down into his lower pockets. “And even he’ll have as much as he can do”—
“That is just what I wanted you to say,” interrupted Richling, trying hard to smile; “then you can let me straighten up the old set.”
“Give a new hand the work of an expert!”
The merchant almost laughed out. He shook his head and was about to say more, when Richling persisted:—
“If I don’t do the work to your satisfaction don’t pay me a cent.”
“I never make that sort of an arrangement; no, sir!”
Unfortunately it had not been Richling’s habit to show this pertinacity, else life might have been easier to him as a problem; but these two young men, his equals in age, were casting amused doubts upon his ability to make good his professions. The case was peculiar. He reached a hand out toward the books.
“Let me look over them for one day; if I don’t convince you the next morning in five minutes that I can straighten them I’ll leave them without a word.”
The merchant looked down an instant, and then turned to the man at the desk.
“What do you think of that, Sam?”