“Oh, I’m not proposing to supply your friends with tickets, boy. Hasn’t this friend got a quarter?”
“Yes, sir, but he’s needin’ all the quarters he’s got, jus’ like me, sir.”
“Oh, all right.” Mr. Milburn produced a slip of paper and scrawled a hurried signature on it. “There you are. Tell him to show that to the man at the ticket office and he will fix him out. Haven’t you seen my club play yet?”
“Once, Mister Milburn. We seen ’em lick those Billies last—last Friday, I reckon it was. An’ we seen some ball playin’! Yes, sir, we surely did so!”
“Who are ‘we’? You and this friend of yours?”
“Yes, sir. He ain’ exac’ly a friend, though.”
“Isn’t he?” Mr. Milburn turned the pages of the paper June had brought him and hurriedly scanned them. “Isn’t an enemy, is he?”
“No, sir, he’s—he’s my boss.”
“Your boss? What do you mean by that?” The manager dropped the paper to the floor, glanced at his watch and turned an amused gaze on the boy.
“Well, sir, he’s Mas’ Wayne Sloan, sir, an’ the Sloans is quality down in Colquitt County. You see, Mas’ Wayne’s mother she up an’ die ’bout three-four years ago an’ this yere stepdaddy of his ain’ no earthly ’count, no, sir, he ain’. He jus’ pesker Mas’ Wayne somethin’ fierce till him an’ me we jus’ lit out an’ come up North here.”