SHORTY HEARS FROM PEMAQUID
It was mostly my fault. I'd left the Physical Culture Studio and was swingin' east across 42d-st. absentminded, when I takes a sudden notion to have lunch at my favorite chophouse joint on Broadway, and it was the quick turn I made that causes the collision.
I must have hit him kind of solid too; for his steel-rimmed glasses are jarred off, and before I can pick 'em up they've been stepped on.
"Sorry, old scout," says I. "Didn't know you'd dodged in behind. And it's my buy on the eyeglasses."
"Sho!" says he. "No great harm done, young man. But them specs did cost me a quarter in Portland, and if you feel like you——"
"Sure thing!" says I. "Here's a half—get a good pair this time."
"No, Son," says he, "a quarter's all they cost, and Jim Isham never takes more'n his due. Just wait till I git out the change."
So I stands there lookin' him over while he unwraps about four yards of fishline from around the neck of a leather money pouch. Odd old Rube he was, straight and lean, and smoked up like a dried herring.
"There you be," says he, countin' out two tens and a five.
Course, I'd felt better if he'd kept the half. The kale pouch wa'n't so heavy, and from the seedy blue suit and the faded old cap I judged he could use that extra quarter. But somehow I couldn't insist.