“Here it is in a nutshell,” explained President Elder. “We either call this fellow’s bluff, or let him ‘play horse’ with us. What’ll it be?”
The situation was this: Mr. T. Glenn Dare, the aeroplane expert, gave as a reason for his failure to appear that he had not expected to reach Scottsville until noon of the previous day. The work of setting up the airship, he explained, would have required but a few hours. The reason for his non-arrival at noon of the day before was because he had gone to Scottsville, Kentucky, a small and out-of-the-way place requiring a drive across country, and having no telephone or telegraph. Returning to Cincinnati, he had “wired” the fair officials, after telegraphing east to his employers for instructions, and had then hastened to Scottsville, making the last stage of his journey by trolley car.
This explanation was not satisfactory to Mr. Elder. Mr. Dare confessed he had not seen any letters to his firm from the fair officials, and had started west with only a memorandum of his destination. He would not concede that his firm had made a mistake, and boldly asserted that the mix up was probably due to carelessness on the part of the fair committee.
“All right,” Mr. Elder had said. “You say you were in Cincinnati early to-day. Why didn’t you send us word you’d be here? No telegram reached any of us.”
“How do I know that?” impudently asked Mr. Dare. “Looks to me as if you people were trying to beat me out of a job.”
“And it looks to me, to speak right out,” replied Mr. Elder in considerable heat, “as if you might have been drunk for two or three days.”
Instead of indignantly resenting this suggestion, Mr. Dare only got red in the face and offered to produce innumerable affidavits that he had been wandering around the country since Monday morning looking for Scottsville and that he never indulged in intoxicating beverages.
This interview between Mr. Elder and Expert Dare had taken place on the fair-grounds just after Bud disappeared and the car had been housed for the night. It left anything but cordial relations between the two men. But the explosion came later. As Mr. Elder was instructing the watchmen concerning the care of the airship during the night, Mr. Dare approached.
“In order that we have no further misunderstanding, I’d like to have a check for one hundred and fifty dollars—the three days I’ve already lost.”