"I cal'late I know jest what you mean, and you don't make me no offers. You don't promise to give me no money," protested Tom.
"What are you jawing about, Walk?" asked Ham Jackson, coming up at this moment.
"Tom Topover offers to catch Paul Bristol, and give him a lathering that will keep him on his bed a month, for ten dollars; but I won't do anything of the sort. I don't offer him a cent. I won't give him a penny if he kills the rascal," said Walk, with as much earnestness as though he meant every word he said.
"That's jest how it is. He won't give me nothin', and says he won't," added Tom.
"If you choose to larrup him on your own account, it is none of my business," continued Walk.
"Of course it isn't," Ham Jackson chimed in. "I should like to pay that fellow off for the few cracks he gave me, but they go to law on this side, and it isn't safe."
"Of course I can lick him if I want to, and 't ain't nobody's business," added Tom, who thought he was very cunning. "I guess I understand you, and you understand me. About next Saturday night at Sandy Point, say."
The coxswain's call summoned them to the boat, and they parted from Tom Topover. The latter believed he had made a square bargain with Walk Billcord, and ten dollars would take him to New York and pay his way till he could ship in a "pirate vessel." He meant a pilot-boat, for he had heard some one talking about one of these brisk little schooners a few days before.
Since that interview Tom had watched the school grounds all the time. Paul lived on the point, and he could catch him alone there some evening. He had built the queer craft for use in his great enterprise. He had seen the Sylph go down the river in the morning, and he intended to put his scheme in operation that evening. Paul often sat on the rocks about dark, and the opportunity would not be wanting.
While he was nailing the logs together on the other side of the creek, a little way up, he saw Paul in his flatboat. Then it seemed to him that the son of toil was as good as bagged. He was absolutely sure he could handle him, in spite of the experience of the kid-glove chaps on the other side. But Tom was cunning in his own estimation. Paul was going to Westport, and it was safer to do the job near Sandy Point than on the school premises.