“I wish I had been.”
“So yeou could git yeour share of the boodle?” grinned Ephraim.
“No!” cried Hodge, fiercely. “So I could show the rest of them how to act like men! I would refuse to touch one cent of it! I would tell Frank Merriwell that it belonged to him, and he could not force me to take it. That’s all.”
“Mebbe the others’ll do that air way,” suggested the Vermont youth.
“Not on your life!” sneered Bart. “They’ll gobble onto their shares with both hands. I know them, I’ve traveled with them, and I am not stuck on any of them.”
“I shall compel them to take it,” smiled Frank. “I am sorry, fellows, that you both were not with me, so I could bring you into the division. I’d find a way to compel Hodge to accept his share.”
“Not in a thousand years!” exploded Bart.
“Waal,” drawled Ephraim, “I ain’t saying, but I’d like a sheer of that money well enough, but there’s one thing I am sayin’. Sence Hodge has explained why he wouldn’t tech none of it, I be gol-dinged if yeou could force a single cent onter me ef I hed bin with yeou, same as them other fellers was! I say Hodge is jest right abaout that business. The money belongs to yeou, Frank, an’ yeou’re the only one that owns a single dollar of it, b’gosh!”
“That’s right, Ephraim,” nodded Hodge. “And there isn’t another chap in the country who would insist on giving away some of his money to others under similar circumstances. Some people might call it generosity; I call it thundering foolishness!”
“I can’t help what you call it,” said Frank; “I shall do what I believe is right and just, and thus I will have nothing to trouble my conscience.”