"Take!" Leon shouted. "Take! Why, Abe——"
He stopped suddenly, and, recovering his composure just in the nick of time, remained silent.
"I know, Leon, he's a valuable man," Abe said earnestly, "but I'm willing to be fair, Leon. Of course I ain't a hog, and I don't think you are."
"No, I ain't," Leon replied quite calmly; "I ain't a hog, and so I say I wouldn't take nothing for him, Abe, because, Abe, if I told you what I would take for him, Abe, then, maybe, you might have reason for calling me a hog."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't, Leon," Abe protested. "I told you I know he's a valuable man, so I want you should name a price."
"I should name a price!" Leon cried. "Why, Abe, I'm surprised at you. If I go to a man to sell something what I like to get rid of it, and he don't want, then I name the price. But if a man comes to me to buy something what I want to keep, and what he's got to have, Abe, then he names the price. Ain't it?"
Abe looked critically at the end of his smoldering cigar.
"Well, Leon," he said at length, "if I must name
a price, I suppose I must. Now I know you will think me crazy, Leon, but I want to get a good designer bad, Leon, and so I say"—here he paused to note the effect—"five hundred dollars."
Leon held out his hand.