Oliva spread out his hands with a dramatic gesture. “Señores, this is a scandal, a grand injustice! You understand it will ruin me? It is impossible that I submit.”
“Very well. We’ll put the matter into the hands of the Justicia.”
“It is equal,” Oliva declared with passion. “You have me marked as a thief. The port officials give me no more work and my friends talk. At the Justicia all the world hears my defense.”
“As you like,” said Stuyvesant, but the storekeeper turned to Oliva with a contemptuous grin.
“I allow you’re not such a blamed fool,” he remarked. “Take the chance they’ve given you and get from under before the roof falls in.”
Oliva pondered for a few moments, his eyes fixed on Stuyvesant’s unmoved face, and then shrugged with an air of injured resignation.
“It is a grand scandal, but I make my bill.”
He moved slowly to the door, but paused as he reached it, and gave Dick a quick, malignant glance. Then he went out and the storekeeper asked Stuyvesant: “What are you going to do with me?”
“Fire you right now. Go along to the pay-clerk and give him your time. I don’t know if that’s all we ought to do; but we’ll be satisfied if you and your partner get off this camp.”
“I’ll quit,” said the storekeeper, who turned to Dick. “You’re a smart kid, but we’d have bluffed you all right if the fool had allowed he used the same cement.”