Halbert looked after him, enviously, as he rowed the boat out into the stream. He had asked his father to buy him a boat, but the superintendent's speculations had not turned out very well of late, and he had been deaf to his son's persuasions, backed, though they were, by his mother's influence. When Halbert heard that William Paine was going to boarding school, he decided to ask him for the loan of his boat during his absence, as the next best thing. Now, it seemed that he had been forestalled, and by the boy he hated. He resolved to see young Paine himself, and offer him two dollars for the use of his boat during the coming term. Then he would have the double satisfaction of using the boat and disappointing Robert.
He made his way to the house of Squire Paine, and, after a brief pause, was admitted. He was shown into the parlor, and Will Paine came down to see him.
"How are you, Davis?" he said, nodding, coolly, but not offering his hand.
"I hear you are going to boarding school?"
"I suppose you won't take your boat with you?"
"I'll give you two dollars for the use of it; the next three months?"
"I can't accept your offer. Robert Rushton is to have it."
"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 sure 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!" said young Paine, formally.
Halbert felt, as he walked homeward, that his triumph over Robert was by no means complete.
Robert, though not a professional fisherman, was not wholly inexperienced. This morning he was quite lucky, catching quite a fine lot of fish--as much, indeed, as his mother and himself would require a week to dispose of. However, he did not intend to carry them all home. It occurred to him that he could sell them at a market store in the village. Otherwise, he would not have cared to go on destroying life for no useful end.