"That amount of money seems to be a great deal.

Still, if a person will offer that much for a mine when there 's nothing in sight to show its value, it ought to mean that there's something dark in the woodpile and that the thing 's worth fighting out.

And personally speaking, I 'm willing to fight!" "I never quit in my life!" Harry straightened in his chair and his mustache stuck forth pugnaciously.

Mother Howard looked down at him, pressed her lips, then smiled.
"No," she announced, "except to run away like a whipped pup after you 'd gotten a poor lonely boarding-house keeper in love with you!" "Mother 'Oward, I 'll--" But the laughing, gray-haired woman had scrambled through the doorway and slammed the door behind her, only to open it a second later and poke her head within.
"Need n't think because you can hold up a dance hall and get away with it, you can use cave-man stuff on me!" she admonished.

And in that one sentence was all the conversation necessary regarding the charges against Harry, as far as Mother Howard was concerned.