“Oh! you’re come to that, are you? I thought you would, sometime. But for you, Alf Brandon, we might have done somethin’ long ago. I’m out o’ pocket clear five hundred dols, and damn me if I intend to pay another cent, come what will or may.”
“Ditto with you, Bill Buck,” endorsed Slaughter.
Grubbs, Randall, and Spence were silent, though evidently inclined to the same way of thinking.
“I’ve sworn every year I’d stop it,” continued Buck, “an’ I’d have done so but for Alf there. It’s all very well for him. He’s rich, and can stand it. With some of the rest of us it’s dog-gone different.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Brandon. “My being rich had nothing to do with it. I was as anxious as any of you to get the load off my shoulders, only I could never see how it was to be done.”
“Do you see now?” asked Spence.
“Not very clearly, I confess.”
“It’s clear as mud to me—one way is—” said Slaughter.
“And to me,” chimed in Buck. “What way? Tell us?” demanded the store-keeper. “I’m ready for most anything that’ll clear us of that tax.”
“You can get clear, then, by making a clear of the collector.”