"No; the same sort that I sold you yesterday."
"What do you ask for them?" inquired Bangs, looking up at the sky as though nothing on the earth below concerned him.
"Ten cents," replied Leopold, looking up at the sky in turn, as though nothing sublunary concerned him, either.
"All right," said the dealer, shaking his head, with a kind of smile, which seemed to indicate that he thought the young fisherman was beside himself to ask such a price, after apparently glutting the market the day before. "That will do for once, Le; but they won't bring ten cents at retail, after all I sold yesterday. I should have to salt them down."
"Very well," added Leopold; "that's my price; and I don't know of any law that compels you to give it, if you don't want to, Mr. Bangs."
The dealer began to edge his way through the crowd towards the fish market, and the idlers hastened to the conclusion that there would be no trade.
"What do you ask apiece for two or three of them?" asked some one on the wharf.
"Twenty cents," answered Leopold. "But I don't care to sell them at retail."
"I will take three, if you will let me have them," added the inquirer.
This conversation startled the head of the fish firm, and he returned once more to the cap-sill of the wharf. He saw that if the young man attempted to sell out his fare at retail, the business of the market would be ruined for that day.