"Three for a—I got nothing like that here. Fifteen cents straight's the best I got."
"All right; they'll do."
The boss had not been smoking when Tim entered; but now he turned to look better at Tim, and he pulled a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, scratched a match, and leisurely lit it—all without taking his eyes off Tim.
Tim also leisurely bit the end off a cigar. The proprietor pushed three or four matches across the case. Tim, ignoring them, stepped close to the boss.
"Would you let me have a light?" he inquired politely.
"H-ff! h-ff!" The boss swallowed quite a little smoke, but recovered and passed over his cigar. Tim took his light from it, said "Thanks!" briefly, and—puff-puff—contemplated the boss's stout henchman in the rusty clothes, who was still standing irresolutely at one side.
"Smoke?" inquired Tim suddenly, and thrust a cigar at him.
"Wh-h—" stuttered the henchman, and then almost snatched it from Tim's hand.
"You gettin' hard o' hearin'? Thought I told you to get along!" snapped Malone.
"I am goin' along," returned the husky voice, "soon's I light up." In the curling of the smoke from the corner of his mouth, in the whoofing of it toward the ceiling, in the squaring of the thick shoulders as he passed out—there was a hint of rebellion.