“For once that day, Guy was supremely happy.”
Guy Harris,
THE RUNAWAY.
CHAPTER I.
THE AFFAIR OF THE MATCH-BOX.
“WELL, Guy Harris, I have only one word tosay to you. If you think you can play off onme in this way, you are very much mistaken.I will post you among the fellows as a boywho is too mean to pay his honest debts.”
“I don’t care if you do, George Wolcom. I’ll tellthe fellows in return that I have no debts hanging overme, and that you are a boy who doesn’t do as he agrees.I wanted a cross-gun; I tried to make one and failed.You said you knew how to handle carpenters’ tools andwould make me one. I described to you just what Iwanted, and you told me that you could fill the bill, andthat the gun, when completed, would be worth half a dollar.What sort of a thing have you given me? Look atthis,” continued the speaker, holding out at arm’slength a piece of wood which might have been taken fora cross-gun, although it looked about as much like aball-club; “I can make a better one myself.”
“Then you don’t intend to pay me?”
“Of course I do, when you bring me such a gun as Itold you I wanted.”
“But you won’t pay me for the one I have alreadymade for you?”
“No, sir, I won’t.”
“Very well; but bear in mind that I am a boy whonever let’s one do him a mean trick without paying himback in his own coin. I’ll be even with you for swindlingme.”
“Oh, Guy! I say. Guy Harris, hold on a minute.”
The two boys, between whom the conversation aboverecorded took place, stopped when they heard these words,and looking across the street saw Tom Proctor runningtoward them. One arm was buried to the elbow in