“Tell you what,” cried Dashleigh; “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars we beat your old crew!”
“Now, that is not money enough to pay me for the trouble of putting it up. If you had said one thousand dollars, I might have considered it.”
“You haven’t seen a thousand dollars since you looked in a window of a New York bank during the trip of the ball-team,” said Starbright.
“And that’s the only time you ever saw so much money,” put in Dashleigh.
“Base calumny!” declared Jack. “But I so little regard such false statements that I will not even draw my purse to disprove them. But I’ll take that bet of yours, if you will call it fifty cents, which I happen to have convenient in my waistcoat pocket.”
With a languid air he brought forth a silver half-dollar, which he triumphantly displayed.
Carson snatched the piece and looked at it.
“Plugged!” he remarked, as he passed it back to Jack. “I thought it could not be possible that you had all that good money.”
Ready looked distressed.
“Plugged?” he gasped, examining the money. “Alas, too true! But I happen to know a near-sighted beer-slinger. I shall give the half to you, Carson, and let you go round there and enjoy yourself. The change will do you good.”