But Bendy waited yet another day in the hope that Tom Benson would relent, then he hurried to the mechanic's boarding-place. The latter heard him on the stairs, and as he entered the room, put out a long muscular leg and courteously kicked a chair toward him. He pointed to it with the stem of the pipe he had taken from between his teeth.
“Set down,” he said.
“What's your proposition, Tom?” demanded Bendy gruffly. “Me—oh, I ain't making none now. I'd a gone to you if I'd one to make like I done before, but your coming to me sort of made me think—” Here he broke off to ask, “How are you getting on with them engines anyhow?”
“All right,” said Bendy, with stern untruth.
“That's good,” was Benson's only comment.
“Come! what's your proposition, Tom?” urged Bendy irritably. “Oh, well, you ain' needing me so very bad, I guess you made a mistake in coming round.”
“What would you say to a fourth interest in the shops?”
“I wouldn't even say thank you,” shifting his position to spit out of the window.
“You wouldn't!”
“I wouldn't. That was to have been my proposition three weeks ago, but the parts of them engines warn't laying about the shops then, like so much scrap iron. That makes a difference.”