them out the first week,--I seed
you sell the last. Where'd you get t'others you been selling sence? I
bought four sets off of you, and Philip six, and Killis and Keats about
nine apiece, and Jason I reckon a dozen, and all the rest of the boys
and the day-schools has been running to you a month, and sweating to get
money to pay you for marvles. Where'd they come from?"

"Did you ever see me play ary keep this school?" inquired Geordie.

"Don't know as I did; but I seed you hangin' round all the time."

Geordie turned to Philip: "Didn't you see me git beat every time I
played last summer?" he inquired.

"Yes, I did," replied Philip.

"Well, I haint played no more keeps sence. I know I can't play, and I
haint fool enough to throw away good marvles."

Convinced but not satisfied, Taulbee frowned darkly. "Well, dad burn
your looks, where'd you git all them marvles you been selling this
spring," he demanded, "they never growed on trees." The finger was no
longer pointing, it was doubled up in a fist under Geordie's nose.

[Illustration: "'Well, dad burn your looks, where'd you git all them
marvles you been selling?'"]

At last came the hesitating, reluctant answer: "Me'n' Lige Munn and Harl
Drake and Benoni Somers went pardners."

"You put up the marvles and them the fingers?"

"Yes, and they's the best players in school, and allus cleans out
t'other boys; and I'm right smart of a good trader, and git a better
price than they could; so they puts in all their time a-winning, and
turns all the marvles over to me to sell; and then I git the halves on
every marvle."

"And then you set up and tell her you haint played nary keep this
school?"

"I _haint_ never played none," reaffirmed Geordie, in conscious
innocence; "I never toch my hand to nary keep this whole school!"

The whites of Taulbee's eyes were now red; he ground his teeth. "Dad
swinge your ole grave-robber soul, I aim to kill you dead," he shouted,
leaping across the table, and followed by every boy but Absalom in the
direction of the unfortunate Geordie.

It was ten minutes before I, with the assistance of Absalom and a
broomstick, rescued a torn and bleeding victim from the howling,
threshing mass under which he was buried, and sent for the trained
nurse.

I have sat here to-night wondering at the light my acquaintance with
Geordie has shed upon the vexed questions of accumulation of capital,
formation of trusts, cornering of markets, dealings in