Dempster's the last person in the world she wants is be obligated to. I can easy imagine the advantage that false alarm would want to take of it.
To show you what kind of a bozo this Rags was when both Judy and her mother accuses him of being the mysterious Santy Claus he don't deny it. At first I thought maybe he had sent in a hundred, too, but when Mrs. Willcox shows me the envelope the dough come in I know different!
Well, though I am overboard with rage, I don't show Mrs. Willcox and Judy what a four-flusher Rags is, because that ain't the way I work. The person I want to tell that to is Rags Dempster himself. So I go out looking for him without saying a word to nobody. That is, nobody but Lem Garfield.
Passing the Elite Haberdashery I see Lem locking the front door and he calls to me to wait for him.
"Make it snappy, Lem," I says. "I'm looking for Rags Dempster and should I find him they'll be plenty trouble!"
"Humph!" says Lem. "A man in a hurry lookin' for trouble is a man who's sure goin' to git service! Don't have to look for it, feller kin sit right in his room and trouble'll come to him. Too bad Mr. Opportunity ain't more like Mr. Trouble. They say opportunity knocks once at every man's door; goes away if yew don't answer. Humph! Trouble don't knock—Mr. Trouble bust down the door, and if yew ain't in, he waits!"
Then Lem wants to know why I'm gunning for Rags and because I'm just boiling over with the thing, I told
