"And stronger——"
The boy stretched out a thin arm defiantly, and closed his fist. "Just feel!" he cried. "I've got a good muscle, and on my legs it's better yet. Just now I've got a stone-bruise on my big toe, but I tell you I can get round pretty fast just the same. I don't believe Mr. Florins would ever be sorry he took me."
"Yes, I'm inclined to believe that myself," mused the man. "But how are you going to make him believe that in the beginning?"
The boy raised his lame foot and gently rubbed the swollen big toe. "Well," he began, "I'm going to talk up big. Father says you have to sometimes when nobody's round to do it for you, and he says it's all right if you do afterward just as big as you talk."
The driver wagged his head wisely. "That's sound business sense," he agreed, gravely. "You intend to deliver the same goods that you sell. Let's hear what you have to say."
"Well, if you get me there in time to say anything, I'm going to tell Mr. Florins that father went to school a lot when he was young. He went through high school and got all ready to go through college."
Edward Billings emphasized his verbs as if "going through" was solely a physical exercise on the flying-wedge order; and Junius chuckled.
"Then I'll tell him that father stood almost at the head of his class in high school, and he almost took a lot of honors."
"Well," assented Junius, "that 'almost' is a step farther than some of the rest of us got."
"Yes," exulted the boy, "I guess Mr. Florins will say so, too. Then I'll tell him that father taught a lot when he couldn't go through college."