Under His Thumb — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

UNDER HIS THUMB. 157 “Get bounced ?”’ : ‘‘Naw. Bounced myself, as it were.’ “How’s that? Thought you was erblishin’ a news- - paper instead of peddlin’ ’em as yer used to do.”’ Johnny’s speech contained a commingling of sar- casms and eager interest. He and Steve had once been chums. Hence the older boy entertained a de- oree of envy toward the other when the latter was picked up by Mr. Waldron and made an apprentice in the great printing-house. “The business got too monotonous for me, so I took to the street again,’’ said Steve, carelessly. All the while he kept an ey2 on the slouching figure upon the other side of the street. “Guess you didn’t suit t’other man when the chap that picked yer up was shot, eh?’’ Johnny shrewdly observed. ‘IT suited well ’“nough. But he didn’t suit me. That’s how it stood. And when it come to me or Mr. Blain gittin’ out of the business, I thought that on the whole I’d better be the one. Make less talk, yer know. Don’t wanter sell out yer stand here, do yer??? “What yer give?” ‘Dollar seventy-five. ’’ Sa “Oh, you,go eat yerself! Think yer can git stock ~ and good will of a mercantile ’stablishment at that figger? Guess not, Steve.”’ “Glad you didn’t take me up, ’cause I don’t like the peanut business anyway. More ’propriate for old women and one-legged soldiers than ‘tis for a young fellow like me. Good-by, Johnny; I must be goin’. 7 Steve dodged an apple which the other in his wrath flung spitefully at him, but succeeded in catching the fruit before it rolled into the cutter, and sauntered down the street, coolly eating it. While Steve was enjoying the discomfiture of the other boy, he had not been idle in his capacity of detective. He had seen the slouching figure on the other side of the street saunter past, quickening his ' pace as he increased the distance between himself and the boy. €o m Gomicbooks