That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the hands of the railroad's chief executive. "Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there." "I'll come," said President Castle. The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized. McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with Johnnie Bones--and last came President Castle. At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet. "What do _you_ want here?" he demanded. "Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this concern. I imagine I have a right to be here." "What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat placidly removing his shoes. "Calc'late I'll relieve my feet," he said. "So I got you, too," McKettrick said to Castle. "I didn't figure on _that_ luck." "Got me? I'm interested." McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage. As he saw it there was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him--and he appeared to have been gotten. He started to speak, but Scattergood stopped him. "Jest a minute, Mr. Castle," he said. "'Tain't time for you to cuss yet. Maybe you won't git to do no reg'lar cussin' a-tall. You see, McKettrick he up and made a little error himself. Regardin' me makin' an error. Yass.... I don't calc'late to make errors costin' upward of a hunderd thousand. No.... Not," he said, "that I got any doubts about the word 'westerly' appearin' in all the papers McKettrick's got regardin' this enterprise. What I doubt some is whether the word 'westerly' was there right from the start off of the beginnin'. In other words, it looks to me kind of as if McKettrick had done a mite of fixin' up to them documents. Rubbin' out and writin' in, so to speak." "Fiddlesticks!" said McKettrick. "Of course that is what you would charge."