Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/27

 "You owe me three dollars and a quarter, counting in the three you just got," was Prime's reply.

"I say I don't; and what's more to the point, I won't pay it. If you want to impose upon somebody and make him pay for cigars that you have smoked yourself, try some one else. You can't come it over me."

"You mean to repudiate your honest debts, do you?" said Prime hotly. "Well, I don't know that I ought to have expected anything else of you. A fellow who will associate with tramps and thieves, as you have done ever since you poked your meddlesome nose into Mount Airy, is capable of anything."

"Look here," said Tom, his face growing red and pale by turns. "Step out from behind the counter and say that again, will you?"

"I can talk just as well from where I stand," was Prime's answer; and then he clenched one of his hands and pounded lightly upon the top of the show-case while he looked fixedly at Tom. "Perhaps you think because you were in the woods when these things happened that