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 dollars costs. Maybe that'll take that grin off yer face!"

It did, for a fact! I ain't got fifty dollars any more than I got three ears. Fifty bucks is a month's wages—a pile of money! Old Ajariah is scowling at me something fierce, but still he's my only hope. So I took a deep breath and turned to him.

"Mr. Stubbs," I says, "can I—eh—I—will you loan me fifty dollars, please? You can take it out of my pay, as much as you want a week."

Old Ajariah gives me a indignant whinny and glares at me.

"I'll do no sich thing!" he grunts. "And ye ain't working fur me no more, ye young rip. I'm gettin' shut of you right now! Ask some of them rich friends o' yourn—them shameless young baggages from the school, with their short skirts and boys' haircuts, and them good-fur-nothin' cubs which hangs around my sody fountain. See if they'll help ye, now you're in trouble!" And he looks around the courtroom, grinning like a shaggy old wolf, which is what he reminds me of just then.

I felt like hollering at Ajariah right there in court that if it wasn't for the "shameless young baggages" and their boy friends from Drew City Prep coming in for sodas every day, he'd have to close up his drug store. But I got other things to think about right then. I got to get hold of fifty bucks or—then Judge Tuckerman bangs impatientty on the desk with his gavel.

"Can't pay the fine, hey?" he says. "The idea! A