“I don't say I pay nothing down. If you do the work right you get the cash t'night, a round twenty-five, and it's twenty bucks more'n you deserve. Why off in this deserted place you ought ta be glad to get twenty-five cents fer doin' nothin' but lay in the road.”
The boy with one foot on the pedal mounted sideways and slid along the platform slowly, indifferently.
“Guess I gotta date t'night,” he called over his shoulder as he swung the other leg over the cross bar.
The heavy man made a dive after him and caught him by the arm.
“Look here, Kid, I ain't in no mood to be toyed with,” he said gruffly, “You said you wanted a job an' I'm being square with you. Just to show I'm being square here's five down.”
Billy looked at the ragged green bill with a slight lift of his shoulders.
“Make it ten down and it's a go,” he said at last with a take-it-or-leave-it air. “I hadn't oughtta let you off'n less'n half, such a shady job as this looks, but make it a ten an' I'll close with ya. If ya don't like it ask the station agent to help ya. I guess he wouldn't object. He's right here handy, too. I live off quite a piece.”
But the man had pulled out another five and was crowding the bills upon him. He had seen a light in that boy's eye that was dangerous. What was five in a case of a million anyway?
Billy received the boodle as if it had been chewing gum or a soiled handkerchief, and stuffed it indifferently into his already bulging pocket in a crumple as if it were not worth the effort.
“A'rright. I'll be here!” he declared, and mounting his wheel with an air of finality, sailed away down the platform, curved off the high step with a bump into the road and coasted down the road below the tunnel toward Monopoly, leaving Sabbath Valley glistening in the sunshine off to the right. With all that money in his pocket what was the use of going back to Sabbath Valley for his lunch and making his trip a good two miles farther? He would beat the baseball team to it.