“Oh, it would!” replied the manager with virulent sarcasm.
“Yes, it would!” retorted Dickinson, catching fire himself at the persistent cross-examination. “What’s got into you, anyway? Why do you come here in this choking, crazy fashion and ask me wild questions? What do you mean?”
Dickinson was standing now, facing his visitor with a challenging look, which warned Melvin that he was beginning wrong. He hesitated a moment, trying to control his voice, and groping for a simple way back to the proper path.
“Well, what is it?” demanded Dickinson, in peremptory tones. “Don’t stand there rolling your eyes. Out with it!”
“It’s about you, Jim,” said Melvin, at last, abandoning any attempt at a wise leading of the conversation, and speaking, as his anger cooled somewhat, with less animosity and more sorrow in his voice. “Did you really run in Indiana last summer with professionals for a money prize?”
For a short minute Dickinson blinked at the questioner in stupefaction. Then with a quick transformation, as memory presented a picture of a past occurrence, the blood came rushing to his cheeks and a fierce light blazed in his eyes.
“Well, what about it?” demanded Dick, again the examiner, but losing his bitterness before the glare of indignation which Dickinson threw upon him. “Can’t you speak?”
“There’s no use in speaking,” answered the runner, sullenly. “If you think I’m that kind of a man, it makes no difference what I say. My word wouldn’t be good for anything. A man will always lie about the first money he gets for athletics.”
“It’s a question of knowing, not of thinking,” said Dick.
“Exactly!” returned Dickinson, bitterly. “And this is the way you know me! If my running hasn’t given any better impression of me than that, I’ll stop it altogether. I never wanted to run. You drove me into it against my will. I will slip out with pleasure.”