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"What is you offer?" questioned Dick.
"Three hundred dollars -- one hundred dollars each."
"You mean for our personal injuries?" questioned Sam.
"I mean for everything."
"Nothing doing," returned Dick, promptly, and with a bit of pardonable slang.
"You will not accept?"
"We might accept three hundred dollars for the shaking up we got -- although we don't know if our nerves are all right or not. Sometimes these things turn out worse than at first anticipated. But the railroad has got to pay for the biplane it smashed."
"Never!"
"I think it will."
"You got in the way of the train -- it was your own fault."
"Your track isn't fenced in -- I have a right to cross it where I please. If I had a wagon and it broke down, you would have no right to run into it. The law might not hold you criminally liable, but it would hold you liable for the worth of the wagon and contents.
"Say, are you a lawyer?" queried Belright Fogg, curiously.
"No, but I know my rights," returned Dick, promptly.
Chapter VI
The Missing Biplane
For a moment there was silence. The lawyer and the doctor who represented the railroad company looked from one to another of the Rover boys.
"Pretty shrewd, aren't you?" said the lawyer, finally.
"We have to be -- in dealing with a railroad company," answered Dick, bluntly. "Now let us get to business -- if that is what you came for," he continued. "We might put in a big claim for damages, and I think a jury would sustain our claim. But we want to do what is fair. The question then is, Do you want to do what is fair?"
"Why, yes, of course," returned Belright Fogg, but he did not say it very cordially.
"Very well then. That flying machine cost us twenty-eight hundred dollars new and we have spent over two hundred dollars on improvements, so when she was smashed she was worth at least three thousand dollars."
"But you can save something, can't you?" gut in the lawyer.
"Perhaps we can save the engine, and a dealer in second-hand machinery may give a hundred dollars for it. Now what I propose is this: You pay for half the value of the biplane and we'll call it square."
"Preposterous!"
"Very well then, Mr. Fogg, we'll consider the interview closed."
"If you sue, you won't get a cent, Mr. Rover."
"That remains to be seen."
"I am willing to give you five hundred dollars in place of the three hundred first offered."
"No, sir -- it is fifteen hundred or nothing, Mr. Fogg."
"But you have not been hurt."
"Yes, we have been hurt. I have been to our college doctor about this lump on my head, and my brothers have been to him, too. We were badly shaken up -- not as much as my brother made out, but enough. If we have to sue we'll put in our claim for personal injuries as well -- and maybe for time lost from our studies."
"But fifteen hundred dollars! I -- er -- I can't see it," and the lawyer began to pace the floor.
"Maybe we had better sue," suggested Sam. "We might get the full amount of our loss -- three thousand for the Dartaway and some for our injuries."
This did not suit the lawyer at all, for he had been instructed to settle if possible and thus avoid litigation, for the railroad authorities had heard that the Rovers were rich and might make the affair cost a good deal.
"I will -- er -- make my offer an even thousand dollars," he said, after some more talk. "But that is my limit. If you won't take that, you'll get nothing."
"All right -- we'll sue," said Dick, and he made a move as if to close the interview.
"See here, are you of age -- have you authority to close this matter?" demanded Belright Fogg, suddenly.
"I can close the matter, yes," answered Dick. "My father will be perfectly satisfied with whatever I do. I transact much of his business for him."
"Ah, well then, let us consider this thing a little more, Mr. Rover." And thereupon the lawyer went all over the matter again. Presently he offered twelve hundred dollars. But Dick was firm; and in the end the lawyer said he would pay them fifteen hundred dollars the next day, provided they would sign off all claims on the railroad.
"We'll do it as soon as we see the money," answered Dick.
"Can't you trust me, Mr. Rover?" demanded Belright Fogg.
"I like to do business in a business-like way," answered Dick, coolly. "When you bring that check kindly have it certified," he added.
"Very well!" snapped the lawyer; and then he and the doctor got out, Belright Fogg stating he would return the next morning.
"Dick, you ought to be a lawyer yourself!" cried Tom. "You managed that in fine style."
"Tom helped," added Sam. "He nearly scared that doctor into a fit, talking about our aches and pains!"
"Wait -- perhaps the lawyer won't come back with the money," said Dick. "He may reconsider the offer."
"You didn't say anything about the wreckage," said Sam. "Who gets that?"
"We do, Sam. They are to pay us for damages, don't you see? If they pay only that, they can't claim the wreckage."
Promptly at the appointed time the next day Belright Fogg appeared. He was a bit nervous, for the railroad officials had told him to settle at once -- before the Rovers took it into their heads to bring suit.