"I should think he would have been afraid to provoke you—a strong, stout man like you," said the stranger meditatively, surveying the strong frame and muscular arms of the ex-canvas man.
"He'll repent it yet," flamed up Carden, his resentment fired by these artful words. "I don't mean to have any whipper-snapper like him get the better of me."
"I can't say you are wrong, my friend, though I know nothing of the matter further than you have told me. What are your plans? When were you discharged?"
"Day before yesterday. Coleman told me to leave town, but I shan't. I shall hang round here till I see some way of gettin' even with that young rascal."
"It does seem hard that you should have had your means of living taken away from you through the spite of a boy. He must have a very bad disposition, this Robert Rudd."
"Yes," said Carden, in a voice which was becoming thick through his frequent potations, for he was drinking two glasses or more to the stranger's one. "I'm a poor man, and it's hard to be thrown out of work."
"I suppose you haven't saved up much money, then?"
"Saved! What could I save out of fifteen dollars a month?"
"That is poor pay, certainly. Is this boy, Robert Rudd, well paid?"
"Well paid? He's got two hundred dollars saved up."
"You don't tell me so! That is a good deal for a boy. Where does he keep it?"
"In his locker," answered Carden, an expression of cupidity sweeping over his face.
This was not unnoticed by the stranger, who said to himself: "Unless I am greatly mistaken, the boy was right in charging you with trying to get at his hoard. I can read it in your face."
"You say he is a fine rider?" he said, changing the subject.
"But if anything should startle the horse or frighten him, anything unexpectedly, I mean, he would be in some danger of being thrown off, wouldn't he?"
"That's so!" said Carden, as if a sudden idea had dawned upon his mind.
"It seems a dangerous business, this," said the stranger, carelessly. "If, now, some malicious person should throw something at the horse when he was in the ring, it might prove dangerous to the boy."
"Well, my friend," said the stranger, rising, "I see we've drained the bottle. Suppose we go out again."
When they emerged into the street, Fitzgerald, for it was he, shook hands with the canvas man, and said: "Well, I must go back to the hotel. I hope to meet you again, my friend."