"Never mind the man; the young woman shall pay for the damage done, and she can fix it up with the man afterward, if she wishes. I am not going to stand the loss."
"It seems to me you are making an awful row over a fifteen-cent piece of plaster-of-paris," said Matt to Gulligan, as Andrew Dilks turned toward the auctioneer's stand. "Why didn't you ask me to pay for the stuff and done?"
"Plaster-of-paris!" cried the auctioneer wrathfully. "That is real Italian marble"
"Made in Centre street," interrupted Matt.
"And it is worth every cent of ten dollars"
"Ten dollars a carload, you mean," went on the boy. "Come, let go of me; I've got to go to work."
"You'll go to the Tombs!"
"No, I won't. I have done nothing wrong, and I want you to let go of me."
Matt began to struggle, much to the delight of the spectators, who refused to listen to what the assistant auctioneer might have to say from the stand.
"I'll teach you a lesson!" fumed Caleb Gulligan. "How do you like that?"
He swung Matt around and caught him by the throat and the collar. But only for an instant was he able to hold the boy in that fashion. Matt squirmed and twisted like an eel, and suddenly gave
