Maybe," he added with
the lurking twinkle in his eyes, "I won't suit yuh quite so well
the rest of the way. I'll have to go b'-guess and b'-gosh from
here on. I've got some change left from what I bought for yuh
this morning too. Wait till I check up."
Very precisely he did so, and accepted enough from Foster to
make up the amount to twenty-five dollars. He was tempted to take
more. For one minute he even contemplated holding the two up and
taking enough to salve his hurt pride and his endangered
reputation. But he did not do anything of the sort, of course;
let's believe he was too honest to do it even in revenge for the
scurvy trick they had played him.
He ate a generous lunch of sandwiches and dill pickles and a
wedge of tasteless cocoanut cake, and drank half a pint or so of
the hot, black coffee, and felt more cheerful.
"Want to get down and stretch your legs? I've got to take a
look at the tires, anyway. Thought she was riding like one was
kinda flat, the last few miles."
They climbed out stiffly into the rain, stood around the car
and stared at it and at Bud testing his tires, and walked off
down the road for a little distance where they stood talking
earnestly together. From the corner of his eye Bud caught Mert
tilting his head that way, and smiled to himself.
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