"But he doesn't pay you anything for it. I'll give you three dollars, if
you say so?"

"You can't have it for three dollars, or ten. I have promised it to my
friend, Robert Rushton, and I shall not take it back."

"You may not know," said Halbert, maliciously, "that your friend was
discharged from the factory this morning for misconduct."

"I know very well that he was discharged, and through whose influence,
Halbert Davis," said Will, pointedly. "I like him all the better for his
misfortune, and so I am sore will my sister."

Halbert's face betrayed the anger and jealousy he felt, but he didn't
dare to speak to the lawyer's son as he had to the factory boy.

"Good-morning!" he said, rising to go.

"Good-morning!" said young Paine, formally.

Halbert felt, as he walked homeward, that his triumph over Robert was by
no means complete.




CHAPTER VII.