Almost all the proprietors of American cafés in the city used to adopt a paternal tone when they spoke to the Kids.

»Oh, been 'round,« they replied.

»Have a drink?« said the proprietor of the Casa Verde, forgetting his other social obligations. During the course of this ceremony one of the Kids remarked: »Freddie, Pop says he can beat you running.«

»Does he?« observed Freddie without excitement. He was used to various snares of the Kids.

»That's what. He says he can leave you at the wire and not see you again.«

»Well, he lies,« replied Freddie placidly.

»And I'll bet you a bottle of wine that he can do it, too.«

»Rats!« said Freddie.

»Oh, that's all right,« pursued a Kid. »You can throw bluffs all you like, but he can lose you in a hundred yard dash, you bet.«

Freddie drank his whisky, and then settled his elbows on the bar. »Say, now, what do you boys keep coming in here with some pipe-story all the time for? You can't josh me. Do you think you can scare me about Pop? Why, I know I can beat 'im. He's an old man. He can't run with me. Certainly not. Why, you fellows are just jollying me.«

»Are we though?« said the Kids. »You daresn't bet the bottle of wine.«

»Oh, of course I can bet you a bottle of wine,« said Freddie disdainfully. »Nobody cares about a bottle of wine, but –«

»Well, make it five then,« advised one of the Kids.

Freddie hunched his shoulders. »Why, certainly I will. Make it ten if you like, but –«

»We do,« they said.

»Ten, is it? All right; that goes.« A look of weariness came over Freddie's face. »But you boys are foolish. I tell you Pop is an old man. How can you expect him to run? Of course, I'm no great runner, but then I'm young and healthy and – and a pretty smooth runner, too. Pop is old and fat, and then he doesn't do a thing but tank all day. It's a cinch.«

The kids looked at him and laughed rapturously. They waved their fingers at him. »Ah, there!« they cried. They meant they had made a victim of him.

But Freddie continued to expostulate. »I tell you he couldn't win – an old man like him. You're crazy. Of course, I know you don't care about ten bottles of wine, but, then – to make such bets as that. You're twisted.«

»Are we, though?« cried the Kids in mockery. They had precipitated Freddie into a long and thoughtful treatise on every possible chance of the thing as he saw it. They disputed with him from time to time, and jeered at him. He labored on through his argument.