“I seen your piece in the paper,” says he, “so I says to myself, I’ll drive in and find out what there is to it, because I’d about giv’ up what Silas owed me and was calc’latin’ to take it out of his hide one of these days. Not that I could git the worth of my money by lickin’ Silas, but it would make me sort of easier in my mind.” “What does Silas owe you?” says Mark. “More ’n I wisht he did,” says old-man Fugle. “Be you goin’ to pay it?” “How much did you say?” “More’n his ganglin’ carcass is worth for corned beef,” says old-man Fugle. “Dunno why I ever trusted the coot. Might ’a’ knowed he wa’n’t man enough to run a mill. I says to my old woman the day after I done it that I calc’lated I’d up and made Silas a Christmas present, but there wasn’t no good wishes goin’ along with it.” “What does he owe you for?” “’Cause I was fool enough to trust him,” says old-man Fugle. “Next time I’ll know better. I don’t see what for you put that piece in the paper and got me ’way in here and then don’t do anything about it.” “If you’ll t-t-tell me what Silas owes you _for_, and how much he owes you, we kin g-g-git down to b-business,” says Mark. “Hain’t I been tellin’ you right along? Hain’t I been dingin’ it into your ears? Say! How many times I got to holler it at you? Be you deef?” “You m-might tell me once more, in dollars and cents,” says Mark. “I’ll tell you. You bet I’ll tell you. If it wasn’t so much I wouldn’t give a hoot, ’cause I could lick him and git satisfaction enough to make up, but I’d have to lick him more’n seventy times.” “At how much a l-lick?” says Mark. “Eh?” says old-man Fugle. “How much does Silas owe you?” “Hain’t I been tellin’ you? Confound it! where’s your ears?” Mark pushed a sheet of paper at him. “Please write the amount d-down there,” he says. Old-man Fugle scowled at the paper and waggled his whiskers and took a bite out of the pencil. Then he got over the paper so close his nose touched it, and he wrapped his fingers around the pencil so he didn’t know whether he was writing with it or with his finger-nail, and made some marks. I could see the paper better than the other fellows, and when I saw what he had put down I felt like yelling “Fire!” and running for home. The figures was two hunderd and seventy-two dollars and sixty-one cents! He shoved the paper over to Mark, and Mark looked at it and turned kind of pink and sniffed and looked at me. I guess the wind was took out of his sails for once. “What’s—what’s this for?” says he. “For you to pay,” says old-man Fugle. “What did you s-s-sell Silas?” says Mark. “Logs,” says old-man Fugle. “Call Silas Doolittle,” says Mark to me, and off I hustled. I was back in a second, dragging Silas after me. “Silas,” says Mark, “do you owe Mr. Fugle for logs?” “Why,” says Silas, kind of vague and walleyed, “I wouldn’t say. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Seems like I bought some logs off of him, and then again seems like I didn’t. What’s he got to say about it?”