Mr. York stared a moment. Then, “Look here, Craig,” he said drily, “you’ve got rather a mean idea of me, haven’t you?” “Why, no, sir!” “Sounds so. You think I invited you down here to put you under an obligation to me, eh? So that when I made that proposition to you, you’d feel more or less obliged to accept it. Well, now let me tell you something, Craig. I didn’t. I asked you down here because I liked you and because I wanted to do anything I could to make you comfortable. You may believe that or not, as you please, but it’s so.” “I do!” said Sam earnestly. “I’m sorry I thought anything else, even for a minute. If I’d stopped to think I wouldn’t have, I guess. I--I beg your pardon.” “You needn’t, Craig. Come to look at it from your point of view, I don’t blame you for your conclusion. I guess it does look a bit as if I had been ‘swiping.’ I’m sorry. But please get it out of your mind, if it’s still there, that my--er--hospitality has anything to do with my offer regarding Warner. It hasn’t. I’d have asked you here if you didn’t know a baseball from a quinine pill----” Mr. York paused, laughed, and corrected himself. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have, though, for my liking for you began when I saw you catch that game last June. I’m inclined, you see, to be predisposed in favour of any chap who can play baseball well, and ready to hug one who acts like a regular catcher. But I’d have asked you here if I’d known beforehand that there wasn’t a chance of nabbing you for Warner, old man. That settles that. Let’s forget it. Sorry I put myself in the position I did. As for the proposition, why, we’ll say no more about it.” “I think I’d like to explain a little,” said Sam. “I don’t want you to think I’m--ungrateful----” “Piffle!” “Or--or goody-goody. But the thing looks to me”--Sam hesitated and tried to choose an expression that would not wound his host--“it looks to me too much like--like cheating.” “Then I haven’t put it well, Craig. Now, look here----” “Putting it well,” replied Sam, with a slow smile, “wouldn’t affect the fact, sir, would it? It seems to me that it doesn’t much matter whether you give me money outright to pay my expenses at Warner or whether you pay that money to a fraternity and say, ‘Here, you give this to Sam Craig and tell him it’s salary.’” “But it _is_ salary!” “But you’d be paying it, sir.” “Someone would have to, and I could afford it. Why, hang it, the thing’s done every day, I tell you!” “Maybe, sir, but----” Sam paused a moment. Then, “Mr. York, if I happened to be your son and I told you someone had made me such an offer, would you say, ‘Take it’?” “No, because if you were my boy it wouldn’t be necessary for you to accept--er----” “Charity, you were going to say, weren’t you, sir? But suppose you couldn’t afford to pay my tuition at college, sir. Then what? Would you want me to accept the--the proposition?” “Why not? It’s a fair business arrangement, isn’t it, Craig?”