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 impatiently. "You've been doing some little favors for me of late."

"I'd rather not take it, sir," said the boy, his lids lowered and his gaze on the floor. "I hope ye don't mind, sir."

"Why, I don't understand—"

"You—you was good to my little brother, Jimmy, when he cut his foot, and—and I'd rather not take anything, sir."

Locke laughed for the first time that day, slipping the piece of silver into the genuinely unwilling hand of the boy.

"I reckon I owe Jimmy and his friends something, instead of the shoe being on the other foot," he said enigmatically. "So Jimmy is your brother? I didn't know that. You haven't a high opinion of me as a pitcher, have you, Sam?"

"Oh, I was jest talkin' to hear myself talk," answered the boy quickly, his face turning crimson. "Did Jimmy tell you that?"

"I overheard it quite by accident. How's his foot?"

"Oh, he ain't caperin' round on it much yit; but it'll be all right pretty soon. I wisht you'd take this half back. Paw, he asked the doc, and the doc, he said there warn't nothin' t' pay for tendin' Jimmy's foot, 'cause you had paid; an' I'd