At
this reservation Mat chuckled contemptuously; but young Thorpe enforced
it, by tearing a leaf out of his pocket-book, and writing an
acknowledgment for the sum he had borrowed. Mat roughly and resolutely
refused to receive the document; but Zack tied it up along with the
bank-notes, and threw the beaver-skin roll back to its owner, as
requested.
"Do you want a bed to sleep in?" asked Mat next. "Say yes or no at
once! I won't have no more gibberish. I'm not a gentleman, and I can't
shake up along with them as are. It's no use trying it on with me,
young 'un. I'm not much better than a cross between a savage and a
Christian. I'm a battered, lonesome, scalped old vagabond--that's what
I am! But I'm brothers with you for all that. What's mine is yours; and
if you tell me it isn't again, me and you are likely to quarrel. Do you
want a bed to sleep in? Yes? or No?"
Yes; Zack certainly wanted a bed; but--
"There's one for you," remarked Mat, pointing through the folding-doors
into the back room. _"I_ don't want it. I haven't slep' in a bed these
twenty years and more, and I can't do it now. I take dog's snoozes in
this corner; and I shall take more dog's snoozes out of doors in the
day-time, when the sun begins to shine.
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