Now, that's business."
Sleeny looked at his friend in surprise and with some distrust. The
offer was so generous and reckless, that he could not help asking
himself what was its motive. He looked so long and so stupidly at
Offitt, that the latter at last divined his feeling. He thought that,
without telling Sleeny the whole scheme, he would test him one step
farther.
"I don't doubt," he said carelessly, "but what we could pay ourselves
well for the job,--spoil the 'Gyptians, you know,--forage on the enemy.
Plenty of portables in them houses, eh!"
"I never said"--Sam spoke slowly and deliberately--"I wanted to
'sassinate him, or rob him, or burgle him. If I could catch him and
lick him, in a fair fight, I'd do it; and I wouldn't care how hard I
hit him, or what with."
"All right," said Offitt, curtly. "You met him once in a fair fight,
and he licked you. And you tried him another way,--courtin' the same
girl,--and he beat you there. But it's all right. I've got nothin'
against him, if you hain't. Lemme mark your name on this hammer," and,
turning the conversation so quickly that Sleeny had no opportunity to
resent the last taunt, he took his knife and began dexterously and
swiftly to cut Sam's initials in the handle of his hammer.
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