Aloud, he said:
"We'll go down this way, then. Did I look lonesome? Well, I wasn't
feeling any lonesome, I can tell you--none whatever!"
"Perhaps you object to my company?" drawing back.
Badger knew that this was a piece of acting, and he wanted to crack
Agnew on the jaw for it. But he held himself in check. Really Badger
seemed to be gaining some self-control--a thing that was entirely
foreign to him when he first knew Merriwell. He was enabled to hold
himself in by the intense desire he felt to discover if Agnew slipped
the "fixed" shell into the box. That was an important point just then.
"Come along!" the Westerner grunted. "You said that you were lonesome,
if I am not. I'm not so hoggish as to want to run away from a man who
thinks he can get good out of my company."
"I like to hear you talk that way," said Agnew, linking his arm in the
Kansan's.
The touch made Badger's flesh creep, but he held this feeling in check,
too.
"Here's a saloon!" said Agnew, after they had walked a considerable
distance without saying anything of moment. "Let's go in. We can talk in
there. I never like to chatter much on the street."
Looking up, Badger saw that they were in front of a well-known resort,
which he had entered more than once, but of which he had recently fought
shy.
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