“The rising young financiers seem to have no doubt,” sneered Dawlin.
The older boy looked at the big swatch of bills and rasped his rough hands together.
“Perhaps money don’t mean much to you, mister, handling it the way you do! But if you earnt twenty-two dollars by day’s work, getting into a popple-swamp before sunup, I guess you’d know it when you counted those dollars out to anybody.”
“So that’s the way you earned this money? How much more did you earn?” Dawlin screwed a look at me, showing fresh suspicion.
“I’ll do the talking,” I said. “I’ll talk because I know what I’m doing! I say only this: hand over the coin!”
“And I say again, I don’t know about that!”
I reckoned I was overplaying my air of importance, so I found a chance to slip him a wink which promised a good deal.
“But you know who I am!” I told him.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Then pay!”