"I'll bet ye the hundred, an' small chance I'll have o' being paid."
"Thanks for your kind opinion, but we'll have it in black and white if you don't mind, Mr. Cassidy." And Arnold quietly led the way to the house.
"You're crazy, Arnold. What took ye to make a bet like that? A dollar a day's all either of us can earn. An' even if we get work, that's only forty-eight dollars between us."
Arnold looked mysterious. "Have you forgotten our friend, Enos B. Hinks?" he asked.
"The chap that owns the Palmetto Beach House?"
"That's the man. When I was down there last year, he told me I could have a job any time as guide. Taking his Northern tourists out to kill quail and snipe. Bet he'll take us both on, and it's two and a half a day and grub."
"Faith, I'm thinking 'twill pay better than growing frozen oranges," replied Terence dryly. "I'm your man, Arnold, dear."
"Good. Now to pack and scrape up our fares. We've no time to lose."
Palmetto Beach was eighty miles south, on the Gulf Coast. The tickets were nine dollars, which Arnold raised by selling his watch to a friendly tourist at the station.
When the two arrived at the door of the great building with its Moorish minarets and roofs of gleaming tin, they had exactly sixty cents between them.