I happened to have been in the store the day he bought the set the girl was taking, and I knew that he had paid forty-five dollars for it, so I didn’t say anything, as I certainly should have done it he had charged her too much for it.
“Will you wrap the set up for her?” asked Doc.
“Certainly,” I agreed quickly, “and carry it home for her too if she’ll let me.”
She blushed and smiled prettily, but answered nothing. Silence is ample consent, I said to myself. As I finished wrapping the thing up and put it under my arm Doc was counting out fifty-five dollars to the young man.
A strange thing happened then. The young man picked up a five dollar bill and put it in his billfold; the rest of the money he shoved back at Doc Edwards.
“Why!” breathed Doc. “What’s—what’s the idea?”
“It’s yours,” retorted the young man angrily.
“Mine?”
“Sure,” snapped the young man. “That lady is my wife; I’m paying for her set. I suppose if we came in here to exchange a three tube for a five tube set you’d have soaked us about twenty-five dollars to boot. We heard all about you, you old horse thief, before we came over here; so, for once, you can consider that you had something put over on you.”
I stood there with my mouth gaping as the young man walked over, snatched the bundle out from under my arm—and then suddenly another strange thing happened. I dreamed that I was looking into an immense loud speaker and that I could see all the stars in the heavenly firmament at once, and some of them were jumping around playing leap-frog; acting, in fact, so as almost to bear out Doc’s theory which I had so often scoffed at.