In the street they saw Benson, his cane gripped in the middle, strolling through the white-clothed jabbering natives on the shady side. They semaphored to him eagerly. He came across cautiously, like a man who ventures into dangerous company. "We're going to get up a race. Pop and Fred. Pop swears he can skin 'im. This is a tip. Keep it dark. Say, won't Freddie be hot?" Benson looked as if he had been compelled to endure these exhibitions of insanity for a century. "Oh, you fellows are off. Pop can't beat Freddie. He's an old bat. Why, it's impossible. Pop can't beat Freddie." "Can't he? Want to bet he can't?" said the kids. "There now, let's see--you're talking so large." "Well, you----" "Oh, bet. Bet or else close your trap. That's the way." "How do you know you can pull off the race? Seen Freddie?" "No, but----" "Well, see him then. Can't bet with no race arranged. I'll bet with you all right--all right. I'll give you fellows a tip though--you're a pair of asses. Pop can't run any faster than a brick school-house." The kids scowled at him and defiantly said--"Can't he?" They left him and went to the Casa Verde. Freddie, beautiful in his white jacket, was holding one of his innumerable conversations across the bar. He smiled when he saw them. "Where you boys been?" he demanded, in a paternal tone. 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 yards' 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 him. He can't run with me. Certainly not. Why, you fellows are just jollying me." "Are we though!" said the kids. "You daren'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.