“Take that coin; that’s all there is to it. To leave or not,—that’s my pleasure.”
“But that is not your pleasure. The boss of your boarding house came to me yesterday and wanted me to tell you leave the house, and when I heard his explanation, what he said was reasonable. And I dropped there on my way here this morning to hear more details and make sure of everything.”
What Porcupine was trying to get at was all dark to me.
“I don’t care a snap what the boss was damn well pleased to tell you,” I cried. “What do you mean by deciding everything by yourself! If there is any reason, tell me first. What’s the matter with you, deciding what the boss says is reasonable without hearing me.”
“Then you shall hear,” he said. “You’re too tough and been regarded a nuisance over there. Say, the wife of a boarding house is a wife, not a maid, and you’ve been such a four-flusher as to make her wipe your feet.”
“When did I make her wipe my feet?” I asked.
“I don’t know whether you did or did not, but anyway they’re pretty sore about you. He said he can make ten or fifteen yen easily if he sell a roll of panel-picture.”
“Damn the chap! Why did he take me for a boarder then!”
“I don’t know why. They took you but they want you leave because they got tired of you. So you’d better get out.”
“Sure, I will. Who’d stay in such a house even if they beg me on their knees. You’re insolent to have induced me to go to such a false accuser in the first place.”