Part 8 (1/2)
”No.”
”I'll give you two dollars for the use of it; the next three months?”
”I can't accept your offer. Robert Rushton is to have it.”
”But he doesn't pay you anything for it. I'll give you three dollars, if you say so?”
”You can't have it for three dollars, or ten. I have promised it to my friend, Robert Rushton, and I shall not take it back.”
”You may not know,” said Halbert, maliciously, ”that your friend was discharged from the factory this morning for misconduct.”
”I know very well that he was discharged, and through whose influence, Halbert Davis,” said Will, pointedly. ”I like him all the better for his misfortune, and so I am sure will my sister.”
Halbert's face betrayed the anger and jealousy he felt, but he didn't dare to speak to the lawyer's son as he had to the factory boy.
”Good-morning!” he said, rising to go.
”Good-morning!” said young Paine, formally.
Halbert felt, as he walked homeward, that his triumph over Robert was by no means complete.
CHAPTER VII.
THE STRANGE Pa.s.sENGER.
Robert, though not a professional fisherman, was not wholly inexperienced. This morning he was quite lucky, catching quite a fine lot of fish--as much, indeed, as his mother and himself would require a week to dispose of. However, he did not intend to carry them all home.
It occurred to him that he could sell them at a market store in the village. Otherwise, he would not have cared to go on destroying life for no useful end.
Accordingly, on reaching the sh.o.r.e, he strung the fish and walked homeward, by way of the market. It was rather a heavy tug, for the fish he had caught weighed at least fifty pounds.
Stepping into the store, he attracted the attention of the proprietor.
”That's a fine lot of fish you have there, Robert. What are you going to do with them?”
”I'm going to sell most of them to you, if I can.”
”Are they just out of the water?”
”Yes; I have just brought them in.”
”What do you want for them?”
”I don't know what is a fair price?”
”I'll give you two cents a pound for as many as you want to sell.”
”All right,” said our hero, with satisfaction. ”I'll carry this one home, and you can weigh the rest.”