“Good afternoon, sir. Will you be good enough to let me see your authority for the use of these grounds?” he demanded frigidly. “If I gave any such permission I cannot seem to recall it.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Temple,” said Mr. Ellsworth, “that we can show no written word on—”
“Ah, yes,” said the bank president, conclusively, “and is it a part of your program to teach young boys to take and use what does not belong to them?”
The scoutmaster flushed slightly. “No, that is quite foreign to our program, Mr. Temple. Some weeks ago, happening to meet your secretary I asked him whether we might use this field for practice since it is in a central and convenient part of town, and he told me he believed there would be no objection. Perhaps I should have—”
“And you are under the impression that this field belongs to my secretary?” asked Mr. Temple, hotly. “If you have nothing better to do with yourself than to play leader to a crew of—”
Here Mr. Ellsworth interrupted him.
“We will leave the field at once, sir.”
“When I was a young man,” said Mr. Temple, with frosty condescension, “I had something more important to do with myself than to play Wild West with a pack of boys.”
“There were more open fields in those days,” said the scoutmaster, pleasantly.
“And perhaps that is why my wealth grows now.”