“Oh, but, Fred! we are willing,” protested Polly Marley, president of the Riddle Club. “Of course we’re willing. The only reason I didn’t pay to-day was because I didn’t have ten cents.”
“And why didn’t you?” said Fred, for all the world, Ward thought, like the orators who spoke in River Bend on the Fourth of July. “Why didn’t you?”
Polly was not awed by Fred’s rhetoric. She laughed at him.
“I didn’t have ten cents,” she giggled, “because I loaned it to some one.”
“Artie, I suppose,” grumbled Fred. He considered that his position as treasurer gave him the right to ask any amount of personal questions when dues were not forthcoming.
“No-o, it wasn’t Artie,” said Polly, still smiling.
“But Artie hasn’t paid his dues, either,” declared Fred, fixing that small boy with a stern eye. “Where’s your ten cents, Artie?”
Artie Marley, Polly’s brother, wriggled uneasily.
“Now——” he stammered, “now, I had ten cents. But I haven’t got it now. I’ll pay you the next meeting, Fred.”
“What did you do with the dime you had?” asked Fred.