Bart scowled.
“That may be true, and I think likely it’s why I dislike him; but I swear I never entertained some of his fool notions about dignity and the degrading influence of honest work. I respect a man who has enough snap in himself to get out and hustle. Mason looks with pity and disdain on a man who has to get out and hustle. That’s where his cursed Southern training makes him a cad!”
“I myself love work,” asserted Ready. “I love it so much that I can peacefully lie down beside it and sleep almost any time. Besides, there are so many others working that I don’t see as if it would be important whether I helped them or not.”
“It would be a good thing if Mason had to get out and make his way in the world. Perhaps it would teach him not to curl his nose up at honest people who labor.”
“It may be thou art right; but I think he’d go into politics and become a congressman before he would stoop to work. Some men, you know, will suffer any degradation rather than toil.”
“He needs to be taken down a peg or two,” said Bart. “I hate a cad, and Mason is a cad of the first water.”
“I don’t care to get into a fight here,” said the voice of Mason himself, who had, unperceived, come in from the field after making the round of the bases; “but, sah, if you want to back up your talk, sah, I’ll meet you anywhere you like, sah.”
“La! la!” murmured Ready. “Methinks I smell smoke!”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” said Hodge. “I wouldn’t waste my time thrashing a fellow like you.”