inflicting some injury upon the boy.

So blinded was Pee-Wee by this vigorous bath and so preoccupied
the others that for the moment none of them noticed the young fellow
of about twenty who, with hat tilted rakishly on the side of his head
and cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, stood in the
road watching them.


CHAPTER X

DEADWOOD GAMELY TALKS BUSINESS

Deadwood Gamely was the village sport and enjoyed a certain prestige
because his father was a lawyer. He was also somewhat of an object of
awe because he went to Baxter City every day, and worked in the bank
there.

His ramshackle Ford roadster was considered an evidence of the
terribly reckless extravagance of his habits, but it was really
nothing more than a sort of pocketbook, since all his money went
into it, and a very shabby one at that. He had a cheap wit and
swaggeringly condescending air which he practiced on the simple
inhabitants of Everdoze, and in his banter he was not always kind.
Yet notwithstanding that he was tawdry both in dress and speech the
villagers did not venture much into the conversational arena with
him because they knew that they were not his equals in banter and
retort.

"Hello, little orphan Annie," he said. "Bungel was telling me the