Thash where you fooled yerself!" 

 "What do you mean?"  Hawkeye bridled virtuously for the benefit of the drummer and the old gentleman with the spectacles. 

 And then the other began to laugh immoderately. 

 "Same ol' quarter," said he.  "Same—hic!—ol' quarter back again. Great system—peanut boy—conductor—hic! Pass it off on one—other passes it off on some one else. Just passed it off on—hic!—peanut boy for a joke. Goin' to give him a dollar when he comes back." 

 "Oh, you did, did you!" snapped Hawkeye ominously.  "And you mean to insinuate that I deliberately tried to——" 

 "Sure!" declared the man heartily. 

 "You're a liar!" announced Hawkeye, spluttering mad.  "And what's more, since it came from you, you'll take it back!"  He dug into his pocket for the ubiquitous lead piece. 

 "Not—hic!—on your life!" said the man earnestly.  "You hang onto it, old top. I didn't pass it off on you." 

 "Haw!" exploded the drummer suddenly.  "Haw—haw, haw!" 

 And the elderly gentleman smiled. 

 Hawkeye's face went red, and then purple. 

 "Go 'way!" said the man petulantly.  "I don't like you. Go 'way! Go an' tell peanuts I—hic!—got a dollar for him." 

 And Hawkeye went—but Toddles never got the dollar. Hawkeye went out of the smoking compartment of the parlor car with the lead quarter in his pocket—because he couldn't do anything else—which didn't soothe his feelings any—and he went out mad enough to bite himself. The drummer's guffaw followed him, and he thought he even caught a chuckle from the elderly party with the magazine and spectacles. 

 Hawkeye was mad; and he was quite well aware, painfully well aware that he had looked like a fool, which is about one of the meanest feelings there is to feel; and, as he made his way forward through the train, he grew madder still. That change was the change from his twenty-dollar bill. He had not needed to be told that the lead quarter had come from Toddles. The only question at all in doubt was whether or not Toddles had put the counterfeit coin over on him knowingly and with malice aforethought. Hawkeye, however, had an intuition deep down inside of him that there wasn't any doubt even 

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