So it happened that when, along in November, the Major came back to Ostable to look over his place, afore leavin' for Florida, and come into the store, I was ready for him. He grinned and asked me if he had any mail.
"While you're about it," he says, chucklin', "you can pay me that bet."
Now the very sound of the word "bet" hit me on a sore place. I'd lost one hat to Mr. Pike and the letter I'd got from him rubbed me across the grain every time I thought of it.
"What bet?" says I.
"Why, the bet you made that the Blaisdell woman would be postmistress here."
"I didn't bet that," I says.
"You didn't?" he roared. "You did, too! You bet—"
"I bet that Mary would handle the mail, that's all. So she will; fact is, she's handlin' it now. She's my assistant in the post-office here. If you don't believe it, go back to the mail window and look in. No, Major, I win the bet."
Maybe I did, but he wouldn't pay it. He vowed I was a low down swindler and a "welsher," whatever that is. He blew out of that store like a toy typhoon and I didn't see him again until the next summer. However, I had a feelin' that Major Cobden Clark wa'n't the wust friend I had, by a consider'ble sight.
You see, that was Jim Henry's great scheme—to hire Mary to run the office as my assistant. He didn't say what salary I was to pay her, and, if I chose to hand over three-quarters of the postmaster's pay to her, what business was it of his? I told him that plain, and, to do him justice, he didn't seem to care.