"Why did he have to go?" shouted Poole, whose wrath, already at the boiling-point, bubbled furiously over at the suggestion of excuse for Carle's defection. "Why did he have to go? Why couldn't he stay here and earn his way as well as Laughlin and Jeffrey and White and Barrington, and lots of other fellows that are better than he is? Why did he have to join that Standard Oil crowd and play the sport, when he knew, and everybody knew, that he had no money to spend? Why couldn't he live within his means, like any decent fellow? Think of his knowing for a week that he was going to clear out, and letting us tend him and tutor him and guard him like a confounded little prince! Why, he was in the cage with Borland yesterday afternoon!"
These were obviously rhetorical questions, to which answers were not expected. But Rob, though he felt no temptation to undertake the defence of Carle, could not refrain from remarking: "You fellows were partly responsible. You've done nothing but flatter him and pet him since he came."
There was some truth in this charge, and Poole was honest enough to recognize it. He passed abruptly from vituperation to lament:—
"But he could pitch—you know he could. I never saw a fellow in the cage like him—and he's let us waste all the winter on him, the beggar, and now crawls off just when we rely on him most. What's O'Connell or that green Patterson compared with him? Borland's simply thrown his winter away."
The references to Patterson and Borland were not pleasing to Owen; the first, because he knew that the contemptuous opinion was not deserved, the second, because it emphasized once more the contrast between his own position and that of Borland. It had apparently not occurred to Poole that Patterson might have developed under Owen's tuition.
"I call Patterson a very promising man," he blurted out, stung by the captain's slur, and regardless of his secret.
Poole shot a quick glance at his companion.
"Better than Carle, perhaps," he said with a mocking smile.
"Better than Carle two years from now, if not better to-day," Owen retorted hotly. "I've caught them both and I ought to know something about it."