fore.

"Hi, there!--you with the breeches and the leggings,--ain't you got
that order of mine ready yet?"

"It is all here waiting for you," I shouted back, striking a match on
my much maligned breeches and lighting my briar pipe leisurely.

"Well,--why'n the devil don't you bring it aboard?"

"Why don't you come and fetch it?" I cried. "I'm a store-keeper,
Mister Joe Clark,--not a delivery wagon. I sell f.o.b. the veranda."
And I smoked on.

He jumped out of the boat and rushed up the beach like a madman. I sat
still, smoking away dreamily, but with a weather eye on him.

He stood over me, rolled up his sleeves and contemplated me, then he
turned and shouted to his man:

"Hi, Plumbago! Come on and lend a hand with this cargo. No use
wasting any time on this tom-fool injun."

To say I was surprised, was to put it mildly, for I was sure a quarrel
was about to be precipitated.

Joe Clark and his man set to, carrying the boxes, and bundles, and
packages piecemeal from the veranda to the boat, while I smoked and
smoked as if in complete ignorance of their presence.

I knew I was acting aggravatingly, but then, I had been very much
aggravated.

In an ordinary circumstance I would have been only too pleased to lend
a hand if asked and, possibly, without being asked,--although there was
nothing calling for me to do so,--but when ordered,--well,--how would
any other fellow with a little pride in him have acted? Still, I must
give Joe Clark his due. He made two trips to that dinghy against his
helper's one and he always tackled the heaviest and the most unwieldy
packages.

When he came for the last box, I rose to go into the house. As I
turned, he caught me by the arm.

"Here!" he shouted.

I whipped round.

"Take your hands off me," I cried angrily, jerking my arm in an old
wrestling trick and throwing my weight on him at an unbalanced angle,
freeing myself and sending him back against the partition.

He recovered himself and we stood facing each other defiantly.

"God!" he growled, "but I'd like to kill you. You think you've won
this time. Maybe you have, but, by God! you won't be in this store a
month from now. I'll hound you out, or kick you out,--take it from me."

"And I'll stand by," I replied, "and take it all quietly like the
simple little lamb I'm not."

I went into the house and closed the door, and the last I saw of Joe
Clark that day was through the window as he packed his last bo