“All this explaining does not justify you in the least.”
“Perhaps not; but there you are. I’m ready to apologize, if that suits you better.”
“Even an apology can’t square it,” asserted Hodge.
“I’m very sorry,” declared Cameron. “I’ve told the boys that you are to be treated with the utmost courtesy during the rest of your stay in town.”
“Which will be very brief,” said Frank. “We shall leave on the ten A.M. train to-day.”
“I hope not. I am here to offer you inducements to play with my team to-morrow. It will be the opening game, and I know we’ll turn out a mob of people.”
“When it comes to nerve,” said Bart, “that is just about the full limit!”
“If you’ll play,” Cameron went on, “I’ll give you a fixed sum, or I’ll pay you two-thirds the net gate receipts, win or lose. Besides that I’ll put you up at the Mansion House, and the best Cartersville affords shall be yours. Can you ask for anything fairer?”
“It sounds very fine,” laughed Merry; “but what we have seen and heard has taught us the folly of dealing with you and the class of people you represent.”
“Then you refuse?”