Instead of Thad Stevens, Owen Dugdale, Horatio Juggins, “Just” Smith, or Julius Hobson he saw—­Nick Lang!

“Oh, hello, Nick!” he commenced to say, a little restrained in his welcome; for, of course, he could give a guess that the other had come again to try and buy his skates, which Hugh was not much in favor of selling.

He shoved a chair forward, determined not to be uncivil at any rate.  After that talk with Thad about this fellow it can be understood that Hugh was still bent on studying Nick, with the idea of deciding whether he did actually have a grain of decency in his make-up, such as could be used as a foundation on which to build a new structure.

The outlook was far from promising.  Indeed, he could not remember ever seeing Nick look more antagonistic than just then, even though he tried to appear friendly.

“But then,” Hugh was telling himself, “I reckon now Jean Valjean was about as fierce looking a human wild beast as that good old priest had ever seen at the time he invited the ex-convict into his snug house, and horrified his sister by asking him to sit at table with them, and spend the night there under his hospitable roof.”

“You wanted to see me about something, did you, Nick?” he asked the other.

Nick had dropped down on the chair.  His furtive gaze went around the room as if it aroused his curiosity, for this was really the first occasion when he had ever graced Hugh’s den with his company.

When his eyes alighted on the coveted skates Nick’s face took on an expressive grin.  Then he turned toward Hugh, to say, almost whiningly: 

“Sure thing, Hugh.  I thought mebbe I’d coax you to let me have the skates, if I told you I’d managed to get another half dollar by selling a pair of my pigeons.  Here’s a dollar and a half; take it, and gimme the runners, won’t you?”

His manner was intended to be ingratiating, but evidently Nick was so accustomed to bullying everyone with whom he came in contact that it was next to impossible for him to change his abusive ways.  Hugh felt less inclined than ever to accommodate him.  Under other and more favorable conditions he might have been tempted to promise Nick to hand him over the skates, for nothing, after he had actually received the expected new ones.

“I’m sorry to refuse you again, Nick,” Hugh said coldly; “but at present I have no other skates, and, as I expect to take part in a hockey match with the scratch Seven to-morrow, I’ll need my runners.”

“But there’s nothing to hinder you selling me the same, say next week, that I can see; unless mebbe you’re just holdin’ out on account of an old grudge against me.  How about that, Hugh?”

Hugh was still unconvinced.

“Just now I’m not in a humor to sell the skates, Nick,” he said.  “If I change my mind, I’ll let you know about it.  That’s final.  And when I dispose of my skates it’s my intention to give them away, not sell them.”