"Yes, I'm going, Abner Andrews," Isaac angrily replied. "You have insulted me to-day, and have made a great bluster, but you'll come down with a flop when you're called upon to pay that thousand dollars you subscribed for the Orphans' Home."
"Hey, what's that ye'r gittin' off?" Abner demanded. "What bizness is it of yours, I'd like to know? Why should I flop when I'm asked to pay?"
"Simply because you haven't got it; that's why."
"What'll ye bet?"
"I won't bet."
"No, because ye'r scared. Ye know ye'd lose."
"What's the sense of talking that way, Abner? I know that you were only bluffing when you offered that thousand dollars, and you can't deny it. How could you ever make that much on a place like this?"
"By workin' the skin-game, that's how."
"The skin-game! What is that?"
"Don't ye know, Ikey? Now, I skin the ground fer what I git, an' mighty thin skinnin' it is. But you skin human bein's, 'specially poor widders."