“‘I knowed that was comin’,’ old Mayhew said, with one o’ his big, hoggish grunts. ‘People for miles around have made it the’r particular business to fill you up with ideas about what you are wuth. I’ve thought some about lettin’ you go an’ see ef me an’ Joe cayn’t keep things a-movin’, but you know the trade round here, an’ I want to do the fair thing. What do you think yore time’s wuth?’” Pole laughed. “The old skunk was usin’ exactly the same words he’d ’a’ used ef he was startin’ in to buy a load o’ produce an’ wanted to kill expectation at the outset. “‘I want fifty dollars a month, under certain conditions,’ the boy said, lookin’ the old skinflint straight in the eye. “‘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 millpond 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. They was the only firm in this end o’ the state that controlled as much custom as Mayhew did, an’ it struck the old chap 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 they 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 let me go, 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 Duncan. “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 people 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 known 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 answer did Mayhew give the young man, Baker?” asked the planter in a tone which indicated no little interest.