Randolph's jaw fell, and he looked blank.
"How much do I owe you?" he asked.
Tony referred to a long ledgerlike account-book, turned to a certain page, and running his fingers down a long series of items, answered, "Twenty-seven dollars and sixty cents."
"It can't be so much!" ejaculated Randolph, in dismay. "Surely you have made a mistake!"
"You can look for yourself," said Tony suavely. "Just reckon it up; I may have made a little mistake in the sum total."
Randolph looked over the items, but he was nervous, and the page swam before his eyes. He was quite incapable of performing the addition, simple as it was, in his then frame of mind.
"I dare say you have added it up all right," he said, after an abortive attempt to reckon it up, "but I can hardly believe that I owe you so much."
"'Many a little makes a mickle,' as we Scotch say," answered Tony cheerfully. "However, twenty-seven dollars is a mere trifle to a young man like you. Come, if you'll pay me to-night, I'll knock off the sixty cents."
"It's quite impossible for me to do it," said Randolph, ill at ease.
"Pay me something on account—say ten dollars."