“Don’t you dare to browbeat me, young man!”
“Yes, and you’ll have time to think the thing over for yourself, sir, before I call for you with a hitch just before train-time! There will be no arguments then. I shall expect you to be all ready with your bag in hand. Go light on luggage. We shall go a long way and we shall go in a hurry.”
I left him and went about a few final affairs of my own, and when I finished I was squared with everybody in Levant. Before handing that money to the judge I had paid my personal debts—I felt that I was entitled to that much!
That evening Dodovah Vose loaned me a hitch and a driver and clapped me on the shoulder with great zest and pride.
“When the judge picked you for a partner he picked the right one,” he declared. “You make a team which will bring this old town up on its feet. The judge needs you, son. He has been going behind.”
And then once more he tried to pump me regarding this latest venture, for I had purposely dropped a word to him that the judge and I were off on a big deal. I knew that a seed planted in Dodovah Vose would bring forth fruit of the sort the judge and I needed.
“You can just hint to folks, if you feel like it, Mr. Vose, that Judge Kingsley and I have seen a way to help this town very much.” That was true. “Incidentally, the judge will make a great deal of money out of certain things where his capital has been tied up.”
“I’ve always said he knew his business as a financier. Some of the old tom-cats in this town have been prowling and meraouwing because he has been tied up lately by mortgages; but you’ve got to bait with money to catch money! Don’t fret, son. I’ll hand ’em out something now to warm their ear-wax.”
“Oh, he knows how to make money for himself and for other folks!”
“Am I too late to slip in a few hundred on this deal?” asked Mr. Vose, anxiously.