A pile of merchandise near the end of a pier afforded many convenient openings in which two boys could stow themselves snugly away without fear of being seen; and, entering one, Carrots proceeded to make himself comfortable by crawling to the very farthest corner, and there lighting a cigarette.
"Say, you're an awful good feller, Carrots," Teddy began, as if he had suddenly made a very important discovery. "You've taken right hold to help me, jest the same's if we'd allers knowed each other, an' done a good deal more'n any chum of mine I ever had. Now, I don't see any way to pay you back yet awhile."
"I don't want to be paid back," Carrots replied, decidedly. "I tried to help you through this thing, 'cause it was a shame to let Skip Jellison have his way, as he allers counts on; an' what I've done isn't much."
"Indeed it is. I'd been on my way to jail now, if you hadn't taken hold of this thing. We've got to straighten matters somehow. In the first place, I want to give back the money you handed me when I was 'rested."
"Better keep it. It may be two or three days before we can do any work."
"But I'd rather start square," Teddy replied, as he counted out the pennies which he had kept carefully apart from his own hoard, and literally forced them upon his companion.
"Well, if you're goin' to square up so straight, I've got a little settlement to make," and Carrots began a problem in arithmetic, using a bit of smooth board as paper, and making the figures thereon with a very short fragment of a lead-pencil. "Now, I sold them papers of yours, and here's the money," he added.
"But some of 'em was so muddy you could not have sold them," Teddy objected.
"Yes, I did; every one. You see, I wiped the mud off, an' then folded em' inside, so's it wouldn't show. It don't pay to let papers spoil jest 'cause there's a little dirt on 'em."
"But it isn't right I should take it," Teddy replied, gravely. "You stopped your work yesterday and to-day jest to help me along, an', of course, haven't earned a cent. Now, the best way will be to give me what I paid out for the papers, an' take the profit yourself, 'cause it really b'longs to you."