“I says, sir,” said Jehoshaphat, laying a hand with some passion upon the counter, “that I’m come for that there barrel o’ flour.”
“An’ I s’pose,” the trader softly inquired, eying the page of his ledger more closely, “that you thinks you’ll get it, eh?”
“Ay, sir.”
Wull dipped his pen and scratched away.
“Mister Wull!”
The trader turned a leaf.
“Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat cried, angrily, “I wants flour. Is you gone deaf overnight?”
Impertinent question and tone of voice made old John Wull wheel on the stool. In the forty years he had traded at Satan’s Trap he had never before met with impertinence that was not timidly offered. He bent a scowling face upon Jehoshaphat. “An’ you thinks,” said he, “that you’ll get it?”
“I does.”
“Oh, you does, does you?”