"Well, s'posin' we couldn't? S'posin' it took two months? Wouldn't that be better'n the way you're workin' now?"
"Yes, I reckon it would; but I don't b'lieve we'd ever get that much together."
"You do as I want you to, an' we'll see what'll happen. Now, look at it jest this way, Carrots: if you made twenty-three cents for me yesterday afternoon sellin' papers, s'posin' you put in the whole day at it, couldn't you have made more'n fifty cents?"
"I could do better'n that blackin' boots, even when business wasn't good."
"Well, there you are! If you earn fifty cents, an' enough to buy grub, an' I do the same, it wouldn't take us but ten days to have the money we wanted."
Carrots rubbed his nose reflectively, thereby adding to the smudge of blacking which now extended nearly from ear to ear; and, noticing it, Teddy asked, earnestly:
"Say, why don't you wash your face?"
"What would be the good of that?"
"You'd look more decent, anyhow. I b'lieve folks'd rather buy things of a feller who's clean, than of one lookin' like an Injun."
"But when a man has his boots shined, he doesn't care whether my face is white or red, so long's he gets a polish."