Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/70

 Rags acts as if this was only what was due him.

"I—ah—I wish to apologize for my conduct at the lake, Judy," he says. "And I'm sorry for—ah—what I said to you, Galen. Your going into the water under the circumstances was very—ah—courageous, even if you were unable to be of the slightest assistance, and, in fact, had to be rescued yourself."

He had to tag that on at the end with a faint, nasty smile, to make it look to Mrs. Willcox like I'd kind of bungled things all up. But Judy looks agreeably surprised and kind of winks at me from behind him to take his outstretched hand, I didn't want to—I know this fellow is simply stalling—but I shook hands.

Then Rags sprang his real surprise. He offers me a job in his old man's carpet factory, and he does it in a silky, politely insulting manner which would of made a starving beggar turn the offer down if he had breath left to refuse! Looking past me, like I'm a horse, or the like, he's talking about, he tells Mrs. Willcox I'll have a opportunity to learn a good trade in the carpet mill and not be a "unskilled laborer" like I am now. He thinks he might get me ten or twelve a week to start. Not in the office—oh, no! I haven't got enough schooling for that, and then they have to be—ah—particular—but in the mill.

The high and mighty tone of his voice gets me red-headed! I can read faces better than Judy or her mother—I've saw more, for one thing—and I know Rags is simply doing all this to devil me. He knows darn well I wouldn't be obligated to him for as much as the correct time, but he's making plenty display be-