“'Fifty—huh! yo're crazy—stark, starin' crazy, plumb off yore base!' the old man said, his lip twisted up like it is when he's mad. 'I see myse'f payin' a beardless boy a Broadway salary to work in a shack like this out here in the mountains.'
“'Well, I'll jest be obliged to quit you then,' Nelson said, as steady as a mill-pond on a hot day in August, 'an' I'd sorter hate to do it. Moore & Trotter at Darley offer me that fer the fust six months, with an increase later.'
“'Moore & Trotter!' the old skunk grunted loud enough to be heard clean to the court-house across the street. They was the only firm in this end o' the state that controlled as much custom as Mayhew did, an' it struck the old chump under the ribs. He got up from his chair an' walked clean down to the front-door. It was shet an' locked; but thar was a lamp on the show-case nigh whar he stopped, an' I could see his old face a-workin' under the influence o' good an' evil. Purty soon he grunted, an' come back, thumpin' his old stick agin barrels an' boxes along the way.
“'How am I goin' to know whether Moore & Trotter offered you that much or not?' he axed.
“'Beca'se I said so,' Nelson told 'im, an' his dark eyes was flashin' like lightnin'. He stood up an' faced the old codger. 'I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Mayhew,' he let fly at 'im, 'ef you don't know whether I'm tellin' the truth or not you'd better not keep me, fer a man that will lie will steal. I say they offered me fifty dollars. I've got the'r written proposition in my pocket, but I'll be hanged ef I show it to you!'”
“Good!” exclaimed the planter.
“Well, it knocked the old man clean off his feet,” Pole went on. “He sat down in his chair again, all of a tremble, an' white about the mouth. Stingy folks git scared to death at the very idea o' payin' out money, anyway, an' stingy don't fit that old cuss. Ef Noah Webster had knowed him he'd 'a' made another word fer that meanin'. I don't know but he'd simply 'a' spelled out the old man's name an' 'a' been done with it.”
“What final answer did Mayhew give the young man, Baker?” asked the planter, in a tone which indicated no little interest.
“Why, he jest set still fer a while,” said Pole, “an' me an' Joe Peters was a-wonderin' what he'd say. He never did anything sudden. Ef he ever gits to heaven he'll feel his way through the gate an' want to know ef thar's any other entrance. I seed 'im keep a woman standin' in the store once from breakfast to dinner time while he was lookin' fer a paper o' needles she'd called fer. Every now an' then he'd quit huntin' fer the needles an' go an' wait on some other customer, an' then come back to 'er. She was a timid sort o' thing, an' didn't seem to think she had the right to leave, bein' as she had started the search. Whenever she'd go towards the door to see ef her hoss was standin', he'd call 'er back an' ax 'er about 'er crap an' tell 'er not to be in a hurry, that Rome wasn't built in a day, an' the like. You know the old cuss has some education. Finally he found the needles an' tuck another half an' hour to select a scrap o' paper little enough to wrap 'em up in. But you axed me what Nelson said to 'im. Huh! the boy was too good a trader to push a matter like that to a head. He'd throwed down the bars, an' he jest waited fer the old man to come into the grass of his own accord. Finally Mayhew axed, as indifferent as he could under all his excitement: 'When do you intend to answer the letter you say you got from Moore & Trotter?'
“'I expect to answer it to-night,' Nelson said. 'I shall tell 'em I appreciate the'r offer an' will run over an' see 'em day after to-morrow.'”