“First thing I know you'll be stealing scrap iron!”
“My gosh! The Huckleberry'd have to stop running if I swiped a coupling-pin!”
Clarence had recourse to the cigarette, and again Spide was consumed with torturing jealousies. “Where did you shoot that snipe, anyhow?” he inquired, insultingly.
Once more Clarence allowed his glance to stray off up the tracks.
“For half a cent I'd come across and do what I say!” added Spide, stooping down to roll up his trousers leg, and then easing an unelastic “gallus” that cut his shoulders. This elicited a short and contemptuous grunt from Clarence. He was well pleased with himself. He felt Spide's envy. It was sweet and satisfying.
“Say!” with sudden animation. “You fellers will be going around on your uppers in a day or so. I'll bet you'd give a heap to know what I know!”
“I wouldn't give a darned cent to know all you know or ever will know!” retorted Clarence, promptly.
“Some people's easily upset here in the cupola,” tapping his brimless covering. “I wouldn't want to give you brain-fever; I don't hate you bad enough.”
“Well, move on. You ain't wanted around here. It may get me into trouble if I'm seen fooling away my time on you.”
“I hope to hell it will,” remarked Branyon's boy, Augustus, with cordial ill-will and fluent profanity. He was not a good little boy. He himself would have been the first to spurn the idea of personal sanctity. But he was literally bursting with the importance of the facts which he possessed, and Clarence's indifference gave him no opening.