“Didn't I tell you? What—”
“Oh, all right, sir,” said the clerk, and retreated hastily. At times he had an awe of his employer.
“Goin' to take all that truck to the Carrolls'?” inquired the consumptive deliverer.
“Yep,” replied the boy, lugging out the flour-bag.
“Credit,” whispered the man.
The boy nodded.
The man essayed a whistle, but he coughed. “Well, it's none of my funeral,” he declared, when he got his breath, “but I hear he's a dead-beat. I s'pose he knows what he is about.”
“If he don't, nobody is goin' to tell him, you bet,” said the boy, succinctly.
“Well, it's none of my funeral,” said the man, and he coughed again, and gathered up the reins, and drove away in a cloud of dust down the street. It had not rained for two weeks and the roads gave evidence of it.
Anderson, back in his office, heard the sound of the retreating wheels with a feeling of annoyance, even scorn of himself for his gullibility, and his stress upon the financial part of the affair.