CHAPTER I.
THE AFFAIR OF THE MATCH-BOX.
“WELL, Guy Harris, I have only one word to say to you. If you think you can play off on me in this way, you are very much mistaken. I will post you among the fellows as a boy who is too mean to pay his honest debts.”
“I don’t care if you do, George Wolcom. I’ll tell the fellows in return that I have no debts hanging over me, and that you are a boy who doesn’t do as he agrees. I wanted a cross-gun; I tried to make one and failed. You said you knew how to handle carpenters’ tools and would make me one. I described to you just what I wanted, and you told me that you could fill the bill, and that the gun, when completed, would be worth half a dollar. What sort of a thing have you given me? Look at this,” continued the speaker, holding out at arm’s length a piece of wood which might have been taken for a cross-gun, although it looked about as much like a ball-club; “I can make a better one myself.”
“Then you don’t intend to pay me?”
“Of course I do, when you bring me such a gun as I told you I wanted.”
“But you won’t pay me for the one I have already made for you?”
“No, sir, I won’t.”
“Very well; but bear in mind that I am a boy who never let’s one do him a mean trick without paying him back in his own coin. I’ll be even with you for swindling me.”