Short Fiction

My Roomy

Sick ’Em

This is just between I and you. I don’t want it to go no further. In the first place a feller that’s had rotten luck as long as Red is entitled to the credit when his club fin’lly comes through and cops. In the second place if I was to tell the newspapers or the public that I was the one that really done it they’d laugh at me. They’d say: “How could you of did it when you was sittin’ on the bench all summer?”

But you know I wouldn’t lie to you, Jake, and you know I don’t care nothin’ about the honor or that bunk.

The little old World’s Serious check is honor enough for me. So let ’em say that it was Red’s managin’ and them two guys’ pitchin’ that won for us, and let it go at that. I’m just tellin’ you this to get it offen my chest.

Well, you must of read about Lefty Smith last fall, after we’d grabbed him. He’s a wop and Smith ain’t his real name, but it’s the one he’s went under ever since he started pitchin’. I heard his right name oncet, but I ain’t got time to tell it to you today. It’s longer’n Eppa Rixey. Anyway, the papers was full o’ what him and Fogarty had did at Fort Wayne; how they’d worked a hundred games between ’em and copped the Central League pennant, and how all the scouts had went after ’em.

Pat had stopped off there when we was goin’ West one trip and had saw ’em both work, and they’d looked so good to him that he’d advised Red to buy the both o’ them. Well, Red told the big boss and he bought Smitty; paid five thousand for him, they say. They wanted even more for Fogarty; so we just put in a draft for him. But pretty near all the other clubs done the same and the Cubs got him.

Red thought Smitty’d fit in nice with our bunch. We needed all the pitchers we could get after what the Feds done to us. Most o’ these guys with all the toutin’ turns out to be dubs; but Smitty had a whale of a record, full o’ no-hit games and shutouts. He’d whiffed more guys than Rube Waddell or Johnson, and had tooken part in fifty games. Besides, he had some pitchin’ sense, which is more’n you can say for most o’ them bushers. Fogarty’s record was just as good as Smitty’s; but, o’ course we wasn’t so much interested in him. We figured from what Smitty’d did and from what Pat said about him that he’d come right through from the jump and show enough to make Red stick him in there in his reg’lar turn.

Well, we got down South and had a chancet to look him over. You could spot him right off the reel for a wop, but he was a handsome devil, big as a house, and with black eyes and black hair.

He didn’t show nothin’ for a couple o’ weeks, but nobody lost no sleep over that; we thought he was takin’ it easy and was one o’ them careful birds that comes slow. Along in the third week we had some practice games between ourselves and Red starts Smitty agin the second club in one o’ them. Say, he had a fast one like Waddell’s and a cross fire like Sallee’s! But he seemed to be afraid he’d show too much. He’d begin an innin’ by puttin’ more stuff on the ball than I ever seen, but after he’d threw two or three he’d ease up and lob ’em over. Them goofs couldn’t see ’em when he was tryin’; but, say, they hit ’em acrost the state line when he let up. That didn’t bother us none, neither, for we figured that he had the stuff when he wanted to use it, and when he got in shape he’d burn up the league.

We played a few games with them Southern clubs and Smitty kept on the same way. Maybe he’d pitch hard to one guy in a innin’, but then he’d quit workin’ and just float ’em up there like a balloon. Red told him one day to cut loose and see if he could go the route. He might just as well of told him to shave himself with a dish o’ prunes. He went right along the way he’d been doin’, pitchin’ like a bear cat oncet in a while and sloppin’ ’em over the rest o’ the time. We was playin’ the Richmond Club and they scored eleven runs, but Red wouldn’t take him out.

After the game Red give him a bawlin’ and ast him what was the matter. He said, Nothin’; he was doin’ the best he knowed how. Red says: “You ain’t doin’ no such a thing. You’ve got the stuff, but you won’t let go of it. Are you lazy or what?” Smitty didn’t say a word. Then Red ast him if he wasn’t in shape, and he said, Yes, he guessed he was. “Well,” says Red, “you’ll have to cut out the monkey business or I’ll put the rollers under you!”

We stopped off in Washin’ton for a couple of exhibition games and broke even with ’em. Then we went home and tackled the Athaletics in the spring serious. Alexander trimmed ’em and they licked Mayer. Red sent Smitty at ’em in the third game and he was worse’n ever. I thought he’d be massacreed.

For two innin’s they couldn’t touch him and then he pulled the old stuff. Cy Young could of run to the plate as fast as the balls this bird throwed. It was just like hittin’ fungoes for them Athaletics. A slow ball’s all right in its place, but it’s got to be mixed up with somethin’ else. The way Smitty mixed ’em up was to throw one slow, and then one slower, and then one slower yet. Along in the fourth, before Red took him out, you could of went on one o’ them street cars from the hotel to the ball park in St. Louis between the time he let go o’ the pill and when one o’ them Mackmen kissed it. Pat was crazy. He says:

“I’d give my glove to know what’s the matter with him. He was the best pitcher in the world when I looked him over, and now he couldn’t hold a job with a high school. He must of been full o’ dope at Fort Wayne.”

Meantime I got a hold o’ one o’ the Chi papers and seen where they was pannin’ Fogarty. They said he seemed to be as fast as Johnson and to have a lot o’ stuff, but he didn’t show no more ambish than a horse car. I read the piece to Smitty.

“Your old sidekick don’t seem to be cuttin’ up much,” I says.

“He ain’t no sidekick o’ mine,” Smitty says.

“You and him was together at Fort Wayne, wasn’t you?” says I.

“Yes,” says Smitty; “and he’s a false alarm.”

I thought I’d bruise him.

“He ain’t got nothin’ on you,” I says.

But he took it just as calm as though I’d told him his collar was dirty. Then I says:

“You and Fogarty must of pawned your pepper when you left Fort Wayne. Or maybe you can’t get along without your Hoosier hops. Somethin’s wrong. You couldn’t of won all them games if you worked there like you’re doin’ here. What’s the matter?”

“Matter with who?” he says.

“Both o’ you⁠—you and Fogarty,” I says.

“They’s nothin’ the matter with me,” says Smitty. “I’m all right; but that slob never had no business tryin’ to pitch.”

“How did he win them games?” I ast.

“I guess they felt sorry for him,” says Smitty.

“They’ll be feelin’ sorry for you if you don’t go and get some ginger,” says I.

The season opened and we started off like we always do, playin’ ’em off their feet and lookin’ like champs. Alexander and Rixey was better’n I’d ever saw ’em, and the boys was all hittin’. It was a rotten day when Cravath or Magee or Luderus, or some o’ them, didn’t pole a couple out o’ the park. We didn’t get excited about it, though: We’d been May champions too often. We was wonderin’ when the Old Jinx was goin’ to hit us in the eye, and whether we’d get smashed up in a railroad wreck or have a epidemic o’ lepersy. The papers was sayin’ that we was up to our old tricks and that we’d blow higher’n a kite when the annual cyclone struck us.

Red had started Smitty just oncet. That was agin the Boston bunch, and he’d tooken him out in the first innin’ so’s we could finish the game that day. The first ball he throwed made a noise like a cannon when it hit Bill’s glove. The rest o’ them never got that far. One was all he had the strength to pitch. The first seven guys that come up was expresses⁠—they didn’t stop at first or second base. Paskert ast Red to send him a taxi. Smitty fin’lly was invited to the bench and sat there blinkin’ while Red sprung a monologue.

“You’re layin’ down on me,” says Red, “and it’s goin’ to cost you a month’s pay. If you’re playin’ for your release you’re wastin’ time. I’d get rid o’ you if I could, but nobody’ll take you. I’ve ast for waivers and I know what I’m talkin’ about. You’re wished on to us for the summer, but you ain’t goin’ to do no more pitchin’. I wouldn’t even let you work in battin’ practice, ’cause the fellers couldn’t see a real pitcher’s stuff after lookin’ at your’n. You can help the clubhouse boy, and you can hustle out the canvas when it rains, and you can stand and hold the bottle while the real ball players is gettin’ rubbed. And you can stick round after the games and hang up the undershirts.

“We’d ought to sue the Fort Wayne club for swindlin’ us! I’d like to manage a team in that league if fellers like you can win a pennant there. I’d give the ground keeper a dollar a day extra to do the pitchin’ for me, and I’d go in myself when he was too busy. They give you a salary for playin’ ball, but they pinch a man for stealin’ a loaf o’ bread! If you’re the best pitcher in the Central League the rest o’ them is paralytics. If we’d spent five thousand for the middle of a doughnut we’d have a better chancet o’ realizin’ on our investment. If pepper was worth a million dollars a ounce you’d be rated at ten cents!”

“Can I go in and dress?” says Smitty.

“I doubt it,” says Red. “You better take somebody along to help you.” Well, that might of been the end o’ the bird if he was with any club but our’n. Red had the waivers all right, but couldn’t make no deal that’d bring us within four thousand bucks of even. Still, we wasn’t gettin’ no service out of him and was payin’ him salary all the time.

So Red was just about to sell him to a old-clo’es man when the old hoodoo hit us. Alexander strained his souper and Rixey got a pair o’ busted fingers, all in the same serious. We was left with one fair pitcher and a gang o’ kids that’d never saw no big-league games till last spring. The bust-up didn’t surprise nobody. We figured that we’d been lucky to go till the first o’ June without none o’ the boys gettin’ killed. It was the same old gag with us: Right up near the top and happy for a couple o’ months. Then, Blooie!⁠—and the club all shot to pieces.

It wouldn’t of been sensible to turn even a rotten pitcher loose at that stage. We had to keep a hold of all o’ them, so’s when some got their bumps they’d be plenty to take their place. That’s how Smitty happened to hang on. Red didn’t start him, but he let him finish for some o’ the others that wasn’t much better. And he kept lookin’ worse all the while.

Well, it was the second week in June when Red sent me from Cincy to Dayton to look at a big spitter.

“I ain’t strong for the Central League after what they handed me,” he says; “but maybe this guy’s better’n most o’ them, and you can see where we’re up agin it. We got to get somebody or we’ll go to the bottom so fast they’ll pinch us for speedin’. If he’s got anything at all and looks like as if he was alive we can use him; but if he’s a dope, like this other boob, we don’t need him. I don’t want to run no lodgin’ house for vagrants.”

So I beat it over there and seen a doubleheader between the home club and Evansville. The guy I was sent after worked one game and had about as much action as a soft drink. I voted No! before he’d went two innin’s. Evansville had a left-hander who knowed how to pitch, but they told me he’d been in the league six years; and, besides, he was a little feller.

Well, I spotted old Jack Barnett on the Evansville bench, so I waited to shake hands with him when the game was over. You know him and me broke in together at Utica. I found out while we rode downtown that he’d been with the Fort Wayne Club the last year and was traded to Evansville durin’ the winter. I’d sort o’ lost track of old Jack ’cause he hadn’t been playin’ enough in recent years to get his name in the book.

“I see your club’s still lucky,” he says. “We all thought you had a grand chancet till them two fellers got hurt.”

“Yes,” I says, “but we’re gone now. The young guys we got ought to of been dressmakers instead o’ pitchers.” Then I happened to think o’ Smitty. “Maybe you can tell me somethin’,” says I. “How did this here Smitty ever win all them games for you?”

Barnett started to laugh.

“What’s the matter?” he ast. “Ain’t the big wop worth five thousand?”

“He ain’t worth a cigar coupon,” I says. “He’s a big, lazy tramp.”

Barnett kept on laughin’.

“I knowed what’d come off,” he says. “I told the fellers what’d happen. I bet Punch Knoll fifty bucks that Smitty wouldn’t last the season. You guys can talk about McGraw and Mack, and them other big-league managers, all you want to, but it’s us fellers down here in the sticks that knows how to get the work out of a man.”

I ast him what he meant.

“Well,” he says, “we had Smitty two years ago and he was a bum. He was sloppin’ along with us like he’s doin’ with you now. At that time the Grand Rapids Club had Fogarty, the guy the Cubs got now. Fogarty’s a big right-hander, with a spitter and a good hook and just as good a fast ball as Smitty. He’s a big, handsome brute, too, and maybe he don’t know it! Up to Grand Rapids he was doin’ nothin’ but look pretty and draw his pay. He was just as valuable to them as Smitty was to us; but we used to have all kinds o’ fun with ’em both, kiddin’ ’em about their looks. We’d say to Smitty: ‘You’d be the handsomest guy in this league if it wasn’t for Fogarty.’ And we’d pull the same stuff on Fogarty when we was playin’ Grand Rapids. And the both o’ them would get as sore as a boil. I never seen nothin’ like it.

“At the schedule meetin’ a year ago last winter, our club and Grand Rapids pulled off a trade, Bill Peck comin’ to us for Joe Hammond and Bull Harper, a couple of infielders. Jack Burke, our manager, told the owner o’ the Grand Rapids Club that it didn’t look fair, givin’ up two men for one. So he says: ‘All right; I’ll throw in Fogarty and then you’ll have the two handsomest ball players in the business.’ Jack thought he was jokin’; but, sure enough, he turned Fogarty over to us.

“We started in on the pair o’ them right off the reel, tryin’ to make their life miserable. When Smitty was round we’d talk about Fogarty’s pretty red hair; and when Fogarty was with us we’d be wishin’ we had big black eyes like Smitty’s. I done the most of it, but I didn’t have no idea what’d happen.

“Well, to make it short, Smitty come up to Jack a week before the season opened and ast if he could pitch the first game. Jack pretty near dropped dead, ’cause it’d been all he could do the year before to get him to put on his uniform. Mind you, we all knowed then that Smitty had the stuff if he’d only use it. Burke told him he’d think it over and was wonderin’ whether to turn him down or not, when up come Fogarty and ast the same thing. Burke decided to take a chancet, so he had the two o’ them toss a coin, and Smitty won the toss. He opened up for us and shut Terre Haute out with two hits. And the next day Fogarty worked and shut ’em out again, but give ’em one more hit than Smitty. They was nothin’ to it after that. We kept up the good work, gettin’ ’em madder and madder at each other. And the madder they got the harder they worked. Either one o’ them would of pitched every day if Burke had of let ’em. While Fogarty was workin’ Smitty’d slide up and down the bench cussin’ to himself and pullin’ his head off for the other club. And Fogarty’d do the same thing when Smitty was in there.

“Both o’ them was strong for the skirts; and, o’ course, a pair o’ fine-lookin’ slobs like them could cop one out in every town. We took up that end of it, too, tellin’ Smitty that Fogarty’s Marie was prettier than his Julia, and that kind o’ stuff.

“You know what they done for us. We’d of finished about sixth without ’em. I never seen such pitchin’ in my life, and I never seen two fellers hate each other the way them two done. When you guys bought Smitty and didn’t get Fogarty I called the turn. Some o’ the boys figured they both might of got the habit o’ workin’ and might keep it up when they was separated; but I knowed different. And that’s why I made the bet with Punch Knoll. Looks like I’ll win it easy, don’t it?”

“Looks like it,” I says. “Alexander and Rixey’d both ought to be ready again in a month and then Smitty’ll lose his home sure. And we’ll be absolutely last by that time.”

We was goin’ to Chi that night and I didn’t see no use o’ stickin’ in Dayton when I hadn’t had no orders to look at no one else but that one guy. Besides, Barnett told me they wasn’t nobody else on neither club worth lampin’. I’d of liked to of listened to some more o’ the stuff about the two jealous cats, but I had to beat it back to Cincy.

Well, on the way I done some thinkin’; but I was afraid to spring anything on Red for fear he’d laugh at me. We’ve all knew o’ cases where jealousy’d helped a ball club, and a lot more cases where it’d hurt ’em; but I hadn’t never heard o’ no case like this here one.

We got to Chi and the Cubs proceeded to murder us. Red was desp’rate and so was the rest o’ the gang. We dropped the first three and didn’t have no hopes o’ winnin’ the fourth unless Hank lost his mind and pitched the bat boy agin us.

I hadn’t never saw Fogarty. He’d been left to home when the Cubs come East in May. But I spotted him the first day out there to the Cubs’ park. He sure was a nice-lookin’ devil and big enough to pitch every afternoon and twicet on Sundays. He wasn’t doin’ no pitchin’ for them, though. They was lucky enough to have their reg’lars in shape and wasn’t obliged to fill up the box score with ornaments.

Well, I went up to Schulte durin’ battin’ practice and ast him what was the matter with Fogarty.

“Nothin’ at all,” says Frank. “I don’t figure they can be nothin’ the matter with a guy that draws his pay for sittin’ on the bench and lookin’ beautiful. I wisht I could get away with it.”

“Don’t he work none?” I ast.

“He pitches to the batters about oncet in two weeks,” says Frank. “He does it when Hank can get his consent. And on the days he pitches to us I manage to hide somewheres till the practice is over.”

“Why?” I ast.

“ ’Cause,” says Frank, “I figure that, barrin’ accidents, I got many happy years before me. If he was to happen to put all his stuff on the ball oncet and hit me in the head, they wouldn’t be nobody to drive the mules on my peach ranch in Georgia.”

“He’s got a lot o’ stuff, then?” I says.

“Yes,” says Frank; “and he’s savin’ it up for somethin’⁠—maybe to give it away for a birthday present. All he does now is sit and wait for everybody to look away from him, so’s he can pull out his pocket mirror and enjoy himself.”

This dope fit in perfect with what Jack Barnett had been tellin’ me. I made up my mind right there that the thing was worth tryin’; but it took all the nerve I had to spring it on Red. My chancet soon come. He was put off the field in the second innin’ and I got myself chased right afterward. He was sittin’ in the clubhouse with his head in his hands when I come in.

“Red,” I says, “we couldn’t be worse off’n we are, could we?” He didn’t pay no attention. “We’d be better off if we had somebody that could pitch, wouldn’t we?” I says.

“What are you drivin’ at?” he ast.

“I want you to try a experiment,” I says. “It may not do no good, and then again it might. It might pull us through OK if you was willin’ to take a chancet.”

“Shoot,” says Red. “I’ll try anything oncet.”

“Do you think you could get Fogarty offen the Cubs?” I says.

“Could I get him?” says Red. “Sure I could get him! They just give me notice that they’d ast waivers. But what do I want with Fogarty? He’s another one just like this Smitty we got. I give him the oncet over today on their bench, and if they’s anybody in the world that’s lazier’n Smitty, he’s him. Don’t you think we’re carryin’ enough excess baggage?”

Then I told him what Barnett’d told me, only I made it even stronger. At first he called me a nut, and it took me pretty near till the game was over to coax him into it. He’d just gave up when the gang come in.

“How bad did they trim us?” ast Red.

“I don’t know,” says Magee; “but I know I chased back to that fence a hundred and sixteen times.”

“Better go see Hank,” says I to Red.

I had to pretty near drag him to get him out o’ the clubhouse. Hank was just goin’ in their door.

“Wait a minute, Hank,” I says. “Red wants to see you.”

“Just heard you was askin’ waivers on Fogarty,” says Red. “What do want for him?”

“I guess you can get him for the waiver price,” says Hank; “but you’ll have to see the boss.”

So me and Red went up to the office and sprung it on ’em. They seemed surprised, but said Red could have him. So Red wired home and got the deal OK’d. And Fogarty went with us to St. Louis.

Before we got on the train, Red told me I’d have to do the funny work. I said I’d tackle it, and then I went to Pat and explained the thing to him and ast for help. He was willin’ and we fixed it up that I was to room with Fogarty and Pat with Smitty.

Smitty was in his berth, gettin’ his beauty sleep, when Fogarty clumb aboard that night. So they didn’t see each other till next mornin’. Smitty nailed me comin’ out o’ the Union Station in St. Louis.

“What’s that guy doin’ with us?” he says.

“Who do you mean?” I says.

“That big, ugly Mick,” says he.

“Ugly!” I says. “If I was you I wouldn’t call him ugly. He’s a big, handsome boy, and he looks handsomer’n ever alongside a homely wop like you.”

He never said a word. He turned away from me like as if I’d ast him for a hundred bucks. Red told me afterward that he come and sat with him in the dinin’ room at the hotel and ast if Fogarty was goin’ to be with us.

“Sure!” says Red. “I thought it was about time we was gettin’ a pitcher.”

“A pitcher!” says Smitty. “If they sold him to you for a pitcher you got cheated. He’s only a swell-headed pup that don’t think about nothin’ but the part in his hair.”

“Well,” says Red, “if I had hair as pretty as his’n I’d be proud of it too.”

That shut up Smitty and he left the table without finishin’ his Java; but he come to Red in the lobby an hour later and ast if he could work that afternoon! It took Red five minutes to come to. He hadn’t had no such request as that from nobody for pretty near three weeks, and Smitty was the last guy on earth he expected it from. You can bet he give his consent.

When our grips come I went to my room to take a nap and a shave; but I didn’t get no nap. My new roomy, Fogarty, followed me in and begin talkin’ right away.

“What kind o’ burg is Philly?” he says.

“Swell!” says I. “You can get anything you want there.”

“How about the female population?” he ast. “Lots o’ good lookers?”

“Well,” I says, “I guess there’s plenty o’ pretty girls; but I’m a married man and I ain’t got no time for ’em. If you’re after information on that subject you better ast Smitty.”

“Smitty!” he says. “What does he know about girls?”

“He must know how to grab ’em,” says I. “All the real dolls in the burg is bugs over him.”

“They must be a fine bunch!” says Fogarty. “It must be they never seen nobody.”

“Well,” I says, “they ain’t looked at nobody since they seen him.”

“I can’t figure it out,” he says.

“That’s easy,” says I. “In the first place he’s a fine-lookin’ boy, and in the second place he’s a swell pitcher.”

“Where do you get that stuff?” says Fogarty. “Don’t you think I know nothin’? If he’s fine-lookin’ I’m a snake. And if he’s a swell pitcher, why don’t they never start him?”

“He’s had a sore arm,” I says; “but he’s all OK now and Red’s goin’ to work him today.”

He left the room right after that and I didn’t see no more of him till we got out to the park; but Red tipped me that he’d came to him and ast if he could work the game. Red told him he was goin’ to start Smitty.

“Good night!” says Fogarty. “They’ll get a hundred runs.”

But, say, I never seen such a change in a man as they was in Smitty that afternoon. He warmed up with Pat first and was so fast that Pat couldn’t hardly keep his glove on. Then Red took him a while and was so pleased that he forgot to get sore when he catched one right on the meat hand.

Well, he didn’t shut ’em out⁠—he hadn’t had no real work for a long time and he was hog wild; but, say, they couldn’t hit him with a shovel! Two blows was what they got, an’ we licked ’em, five to two. It was the first game we’d win since we left home; and all through it Fogarty was frothin’ at the mouth. Every little while he’d say: “He can’t keep it up⁠—the lucky bum! He’s slippin’. Better let me warm up!” But Red didn’t pay no attention to him.

Maybe you think we didn’t feel good in that clubhouse⁠—’specially me and Pat and Red! We was the only ones in on the secret. We’d decided not to ask no help from the other boys for fear they’d make it too raw. I felt the best of anybody, ’cause it was my scheme and I’d been scared that it wouldn’t work. It made me look good to myself and to Red too. Before we was dressed, Fogarty’d drew Red aside and got him to promise to pitch him next day.

I wasn’t sure yet that success was goin’ to be permanent. Still, it was up to I and Pat to go through with our end of it, and my job was to stick close to Fogarty all that evenin’ and keep goadin’ him. I braced him outside o’ the hotel after supper and ast him to take a walk.

“Grand game Smitty pitched today!” I says.

“What was grand about it?” says he. “Who couldn’t beat that bunch? He’d ought to of been ashamed of himself for lettin’ ’em score.”

“He only give ’em two hits,” says I.

“Sure!” says Fogarty. “And how was they goin’ to get hits when he didn’t throw nothin’ near the plate?”

“Well,” I says, “I don’t see no harm in a few walks so long’s a feller can get ’em over when he has to. It’s pretty hard for a guy with all that smoke to control it right along.”

“Yes,” he says; “but I claim it takes a lucky bird to give eight bases on balls and get away with the ball game. It don’t show no pitchin’ on his part; all it shows is that the other club’d ought to try some easier game than baseball. All they had to do was go up there without their bats and they’d of trimmed us; but they didn’t even make him pitch. It looked to me like as if their manager’d offered a prize to the one that could miss ’em the furthest. They looked like a vaudeville team rehearsin’ a club-swingin’ act. At that, Smitty’s got a big advantage over most pitchers. He’s so dam’ homely that it scares a feller to look at him.”

“If that’s a advantage,” I says, “nobody’d never even bunt one safe off o’ you.”

“You’re kiddin’ me now,” he says. “I ain’t stuck on my looks, but they wouldn’t be no sense in me pretendin’ that I didn’t have him beat. I and him was together in the Central, y’know; and I was one o’ the most pop’lar if not the pop’larest feller that ever played ball in Fort Wayne. It takes the skirts to judge if a man’s good-lookin’ or not; and I’m here to tell you without no boastin’ that I could of married any dame in that burg. So far’s Smitty was concerned, he couldn’t get no girl to look at him.”

“Fort Wayne girls ain’t like the ones in Philly, then,” says I.

“Girls is the same everywheres,” says Fogarty. “You can’t never make me believe that they’d chase him, unless it’s out o’ curiosity. You’ll often see a crowd round a monkey cage, but it ain’t ’cause the monkeys is handsome.”

“Some girls likes them big, dark fellers,” I says.

“Yes,” he says, “and some people likes the smell o’ garlic.”

“I s’pose we’ll get a lickin’ tomorrow,” I says. “Red ain’t got nobody left to work, outside of a few bushers.”

“This busher right here works tomorrow,” says Fogarty; “and you can bet a month’s pay that he won’t give no eight bases on balls.”

“Maybe you won’t be in there long enough,” I says.

“I’ll be in there just nine innin’s,” says he; “and at the end o’ that time the St. Louis Club won’t have nothin’ to show they been in a ball game.”

“All you need to do,” says I, “is to work as good as Smitty done today; but that’s too much to look for from most bushers.”

That stung him.

“They ain’t no homely wop got nothin’ on me!” he says. “If I can’t do no better’n he done I’ll quit pitchin’ and peddle bananas, which is what he’d ought to be doin’.”

Well, I kept him goin’ till bedtime and all the next forenoon. He was out to the park and dressed before anybody, and he warmed up enough for three games. Red ast him oncet if he wasn’t workin’ too hard.

“Not me,” he says. “I ain’t delicate like some o’ these here pitchers. Work’s my middle name and you’ll find it out before I get through.”

Say, they wasn’t no kick comin’ on the way he done the job! One o’ the St. Louis guys got as far as second base and was so surprised that Bill caught him off o’ there flatfooted. Three little singles he give ’em and not a man did he walk. Bill told me afterward that it was fast one, fast one, fast one, and hardly three hooks or spitters all through the game. Bill said them fast ones stung right through his big mitt like he’d been barehanded.

And Smitty, on the bench, acted just like Fogarty’d did the day before. He called them St. Louis hitters everything he could think of. When the big Turk whiffed the hull side in the seventh Smitty was so sore he kicked a hole in the ball bag and throwed away his chew.

The rest o’ the bunch couldn’t help noticin’ the way he acted, and I seen where they’d be wise to the whole game before long.

That night Pat took Smitty to a bunch o’ nickel shows and entertained him with conversation about Fogarty’s grand performance. The result was that the wop got Red out o’ bed at seven the next mornin’ and ast him whether he could pitch the game. Red stalled him, ’cause he didn’t know then how strong the both o’ them was⁠—him and Fogarty.

Anyway, it rained, so Smitty’d had two days’ rest before we played again, and Red sent him in to wind up the serious. Gavvy saved St. Louis another whitewashin’ by droppin’ a fly ball with a guy on; but that run was all they got. Fogarty’s game wasn’t a bit better’n this second one o’ Smitty’s, and I kept rubbin’ that into Fogarty all the way back to Philly.

They ain’t no use goin’ on and tellin’ you about all the rest o’ the games they pitched. They was both beat a few times, but it wasn’t ’cause they didn’t try. Every pitcher with a arm and a glove’d cop more’n two-thirds of his games if he’d work as hard as these babies done. Some o’ the papers come out and said that Red was overworkin’ ’em, but the reporters that wrote that didn’t know what they was talkin’ about. It was all Red could do to keep either o’ them on the bench. If they’d of had their way about it they’d of both been out there in the middle o’ the diamond every day, fightin’ for possession o’ the ball.

When Red sent Mayer or one o’ the other boys in, the pair o’ them’d sit on the bench growlin’ and makin’ remarks about each other. The minute the feller in there workin’ showed any signs o’ weakenin’, Fogarty and Smitty’d both jump up and race down to the bullpen. And when Red got ready to take the guy out and sent for one or the other o’ the two handsome birds the one he didn’t pick would slam his glove on the ground and start kickin’ it. Everybody on the ball club kept at ’em on the bench; but Red, figurin’ they might get suspicious, give orders that nobody but I and Pat was to ride ’em in private.

We was right up on the Giants’ heels by the first of August. Then Rixey and Alexander joined us, but all they was ast to do was fill in when Red could persuade Fogarty and Smitty to take a rest. We was about the only club that was beatin’ New York, or else we’d of had the flag cinched long before we did. We was runnin’ through the rest o’ the league like soup through a sieve.

One day Smitty held the Brooklyn Club to six hits in a doubleheader and beat ’em both games. Fogarty ast me a hundred times in the next few days when we was goin’ to have another doubleheader. And a week before it come off he made Red promise to let him tackle it alone. It was agin the Cubs and he beat ’em clean as a whistle; but they got a couple more hits than Brooklyn’d made agin Smitty. So the big Turk was just as discontented as though he hadn’t did nothin’ at all. You ought to of heard Hank rave, though! He couldn’t figure how Red could get so much work out of a guy who’d been on his bench two or three months and hadn’t did nothin’ but sleep.

But you know what they done. What I set out to tell you was how I and Pat kept ’em goin’. We soon found out that they wasn’t only jealous of each other’s looks and their pitchin’. Neither one o’ them would let the other have anything on him at all. If I’d make a remark about what a classy necktie Smitty was wearin’, Fogarty’d go out and buy the loudest one he could find. If Pat mentioned to Smitty that Fogarty always kept his shoes shined up nice, Smitty’d sneak away to a shine parlor and make the boy work his fool head off for a hour. They just naturally hated each other and acted like a pair o’ grand opery stars or a couple o’ schoolgirls that was both tryin’ to be teacher’s pet.

I and Pat would get together and figure out different things to rile ’em up with. Pat was singin’ “The River Shannon” in the clubhouse one day. Fogarty was standin’ right by me.

“Pat’s got a good voice,” he says.

“Fair,” says I; “but the best singer on the club is Smitty.”

Now I hadn’t heard Smitty sing⁠—didn’t know whether he could or not. Fogarty’d ought to of knew somethin’ about it, as they’d been at Fort Wayne together a hull season; but, regardless o’ the fact that neither one o’ the two had a voice⁠—as we soon learned⁠—the Turk joined right in with Pat, and it wasn’t two seconds before Smitty was whinin’ too. Pat quit when he seen he had competition. Everybody stopped talkin’ and listened.

I wisht you could of heard it! It was like as though all the ferryboats in East River had got into trouble at once. Their idea o’ singin’ was to see how many sour notes they could hit and how loud they could hit ’em. The bunch give ’em a hand when they got through, and each o’ them figured it was on the square and was for him personally. Well, that was a big laugh with us for a while; but it got so’s it was no joke when they done it every day and yelled different songs at the same time.

Another thing we done was to write letters to both o’ them and sign a girl’s name. The letters was just the same, and they said that she was a great fan and was pullin’ for our club, and just loved to see them two pitch. We wound them up somethin’ like this:

“I think you’re so handsome and I would love to meet you. I’ve already met Mr. Smith.” We said Mr. Smith in one and Mr. Fogarty in the other. “I think he’s the handsomest man I ever seen, but maybe you’re just as handsome when a person sees you up close. I sit in the third or fourth row o’ the stand, right back o’ your bench, every afternoon.”

Say, you’d ought to of seen them birds fall for that! They rubbered for that dame every day we played at home for the last two months o’ the season. Sometimes, when neither o’ them was workin’, they’d both get up and lean on the roof o’ the bench and try to get a smile from every skirt in the place, thinkin’ one o’ them must be the girl who’d wrote.

On the road we’d get the telephone girls in the hotels to call up Smitty and ask him if he was Mr. Fogarty. When he’d say no she’d ring off; but she’d call him up again in about ten minutes and ask him the same question. We worked this on Fogarty, too, and both o’ them pretty near went nuts ’cause the other was gettin’ so many calls.

Pat pulled a hot one in Pittsburgh. He told Smitty that Fogarty was the most generous guy he’d ever met.

“Why?” says Smitty.

“He’s so good to the waiters and bellhops,” says Pat. “He gives the waiters a quarter tip at every meal and slips the boys two bits when they bring him ice water.”

That started a battle that was pretty costly to the both o’ them, but mighty sweet for the hops and waiters. If I’d of been Pat I’d of made ’em slip me a commission.

We had ’em both ridin’ in taxis to and from all the parks on the last trip West. We had ’em gettin’ their clo’es pressed every night, and buyin’ new shirts and collars in every burg we blowed into, and gettin’ shaved twicet a day, till Red made us cut some of it out, sayin’ they was touchin’ the club for too much dough. And all season I never seen ’em speak to each other, though neither one couldn’t talk about nothin’ else but the other when they was separated.

The pennant race was settled when we won a doubleheader in Cincy on the fifteenth o’ September. When we got back to the hotel Red told us the lid was off for that night⁠—that we could do anything we wanted to and stay out until breakfast. So they can’t blame neither Pat nor I for what come off. One o’ the other boys⁠—I never found out who⁠—told Fogarty that Smitty could hold more wine than a barrel. Then he pulled the same thing on Smitty about Fogarty.

I and Pat went to a show. When we blowed back, about eleven, they was a noise like New Year’s Eve in the café. We went in to see what it was. They was a gang o’ fellers at one table with Smitty, and another bunch at another table with Fogarty. They was four or five empty quart bottles in front o’ each o’ them. They’d had five or six more pints than they could carry comfortable and was hollerin’ for more, but was broke. We got ’em both at one table and ast ’em to sing. Before they was halfway through the first verse o’ whatever it was, the night clerk horned in and stopped ’em. Then we took ’em out in the street and told ’em to finish it, but they was too many coppers round.

Most of us was roomin’ on the tenth floor and one o’ the boys talked the pair into racin’ upstairs instead of usin’ the elevator. They both fell down at the first landin’ and when they hit the floor they was all in. They’d of slept there for a week if we hadn’t of carried ’em to the elevator and got ’em up the rest o’ the way. Then what did we do but steer ’em both into Pat’s room and put ’em to bed together. They was no danger o’ them gettin’ wise till the next day; they was dead to the world. I and Pat slept in my room and we was up bright and early so’s not to miss nothin’. We walked in and found ’em both poundin’ their ear. It must of tooken us fifteen minutes to get ’em roused.

“Well, boys,” says Pat, “I’m glad to see you so friendly and lookin’ so fresh.”

They looked about as fresh as a old dray horse.

“How did you happen to be roomin’ together?” I says.

It wasn’t till then that they wised up. Smitty jumped out o’ bed like the hotel was afire.

“I’ll murder the guy that done this!” he hollered.

“What do you mean?” says Pat. “Don’t you know who you went to bed with?”

“You must of been in bad shape,” I says. “Fogarty was all right; he knowed what he was doin’.”

Fogarty wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t, ’cause if he had of he’d be admittin’ that the wine was too much for him. So he just had to shut up and take it.

“I was all right too,” says Smitty.

“Then what are you crabbin’ about?” says Pat.

They wasn’t no answer to that.

“I’m goin’ to ring for some ice water,” says Fogarty.

“Nobody never wants ice water at this time o’ the mornin’ unless they had a bad night,” I says. “You don’t hear Smitty askin’ for no ice water.”

Smitty’d of gave his right eye for a barrel of it, but he didn’t have the nerve to say so.

Well, we made Fogarty get up and we stuck in there while they was dressin’. Fogarty had to go to his own room to get a clean shirt and collar, and we could hear him ringin’ for water the minute he got in there. Fin’lly we took pity on Smitty and got him some too. He complained o’ headache, and I says:

“That’s a funny thing about Fogarty⁠—no matter how much wine he laps up he don’t never have no headache the next mornin’.”

We didn’t hear no more complaints from Smitty. They both went down to breakfast and tried to eat somethin’, but it was hard work. And I noticed that neither o’ them bothered Red with requests to pitch that day.

They went to bed⁠—separated⁠—right after supper and was as good as ever the followin’ mornin’. I don’t s’pose neither o’ them had never drank no wine before, and, so far as I know, they didn’t tackle it again. They both wanted to pitch in Chi, but Red was anxious to try out some kids; so he told both o’ them, on the quiet, that they was the ones he was dependin’ on for the World’s Serious and he didn’t want to risk gettin’ ’em hurt.

Well, we wound up the season in Boston, and it was the next to the last day that we got into a awful jam! You remember readin’ about Davis, the infielder Red bought from the New England League? Well, he’d got married the week before he joined us⁠—married a Boston girl. He’d left her with her folks while he went West with us and she stuck to home till we hit Boston on that last trip. She was goin’ to Philly with us to take in the serious.

Davis was a fast little cuss, not much bigger’n Maranville. Red had tried him out at short agin Pittsburgh and he’d looked good; but he was usin’ the reg’lars most o’ the time to keep ’em in shape for the big show. Davis had more nerve than any little feller I ever seen. He wouldn’t break ground for none o’ them Pittsburgh guys when they come into second base. In one o’ the games there big Honus had told him to keep out o’ the way or he’d get killed.

“It won’t be no big slob like you that’ll kill me!” says Davis.

Honus had a license to get sore at that, ’cause he was just slippin’ the kid a friendly warnin’; but it shows you what a game little devil Davis was.

Well, as I was sayin’, it was the next to the last day up in Boston that somethin’ come off that pretty near cost us the big money. Mayer was pitchin’ the game and we had the reg’lar club in agin ’em.

In one o’ the boxes, right down next to the field, they was the prettiest girl I ever looked at. She was all alone and she was dressed up like a million bucks. She was sittin’ where we could lamp her from our bench and all the boys had gave her the oncet over before the game ever started. Fogarty and Smitty wiped the dirt offen their faces and smoothed their hair the minute they piped her.

She was a lot more interestin’ than the national pastime and I guess we was all gettin’ a eyeful when, all of a sudden, she smiled right at us. Our club was in the field and they was only a few of us on the bench⁠—me and Pat and Davis and the pitchers, and one or two others. Well, I was one of a number that returned the salute; but after doin’ it oncet I remembered I was a old married man and cut it out. But Fogarty and Smitty give a correct imitation of a toothpaste advertisement all the rest o’ the time they sat there. Every three or four minutes she’d smile and then they’d smile back. They was wise to each other and it was a battle to see which one could give her the prettiest grin.

Just before the last half o’ the eighth Fogarty ast Red whether he could go in and dress. He hadn’t no more’n got permissionwhen Smitty wanted to go too. I had ’em guessed right, and I and Pat was wonderin’ which one’d cop. They raced to the clubhouse and Smitty beat him in. Now them two birds was usually awful slow about gettin’ their clo’es changed, ’cause they was so partic’lar; but they beat the world’s record this time. They was in their street clo’es and down in front o’ that box just as the game ended.

Smitty was there first, but lots o’ good it done him! He tipped his hat to the girl and got a cold stare. Then Fogarty come up and spoke to her. He was gave just as much encouragement as Smitty.

I begin to laugh, but I stopped quick. Before I knowed what was comin’ off, little Davis grabbed a bat and started for the stand. Smitty was leanin’ agin the box, with his left hand flat on the rail. Without a word o’ warnin’ Davis swung the bat overhand and it come down on poor Smitty’s hand like a ton o’ brick. Smitty yelled and fell over on the ground. Fogarty tried to duck, but he was too late. The little busher aimed the bat at his bean and catched him square on the right arm as he throwed it up to protect himself.

That’s all they was to the bout. The first punch is a lot⁠—’specially if you use a baseball bat. Neither o’ them showed signs o’ fightin’ back. Besides, we was all on the job by that time and grabbed Davis. Little as he was, it took three of us to hold him. But, say, they was the devil to pay in the clubhouse! Red was goin’ to shoot Davis till the truth come out.

“They went too far with it,” says Davis. “They ain’t no man can go up and talk to my wife without a introduction! I seen ’em tryin’ to flirt with her. Them big bugs is so swell-headed that they think no girl could smile at nobody but them.”

“You’d ought to of tipped ’em off,” says Red.

“I hadn’t ought to of did no sucha thing,” says Davis. “They’d ought to of knew by lookin’ that she wasn’t the kind o’ girl that’d flirt. But I didn’t feel in no danger o’ havin’ my home broke up, so I let ’em go.”

Then Red jumped on me.

“That’s what you get for eggin’ ’em on,” he says. “Where’s our chancet in the World’s Serious now?”

“Have some sense!” I says. “You wouldn’t be thinkin’ o’ no World’s Serious if I hadn’t of egged ’em on.”

We called a doctor for Smitty and Fogarty, and the news he give us didn’t cheer us up none. He said he thought Smitty’s hand was broke, but he’d have to take a X ray. The mitt was swole up as big as a ham. Fogarty’s souper was hangin’ limp as a rag, and the doc didn’t believe he’d be able to raise it for a month. Afterward he found out that they was no bones busted in Smitty’s hand, but it was in such shape that he couldn’t hold a han’kerchief, let alone a baseball. There we was, three days before the start o’ the serious, and our pitchin’ staff shot to hellangone!

Red sent me and Pat and the trainer home that night with the pair o’ cripples. We was to report up to the club’s offices next mornin’ and have all the doctors in Philly called in. Me and Pat was so sore that we couldn’t talk to each other, and I don’t think they was a word said on the trip. Yes, they was too; just before Smitty went to sleep he ast me a question:

“Who was that girl?”

“You’d ought to know by this time,” I says. “That wasn’t nobody but Davis’ wife.”

“Then what was she smilin’ at me for?” he says.

Well, the Philly doctors told us they was absolutely no chancet o’ havin’ either o’ them in shape for the serious and we was gettin’ ready to count the losers’ share. Red’d been figurin’ on alternatin’ the two, cause none o’ the rest was in real shape; but now we didn’t have nothin’ that you could call a airtight pitcher.

Rixey and Alexander and Mayer would of made ’em step some if they’d been right, but they wasn’t.

I says to Pat:

“Looks like as though I and you and the bat boy would have to work.”

“Looks that way,” he says, “unless we can bring them two fellers round.”

“How can we do that?” I says. “You heard what them doctors said.”

“Yes,” says Pat; “but they’re the only hope we got, and I ain’t goin’ to give up till I have to.”

Red and the bunch got in the next mornin’, which was a Sunday. Most o’ the gang went to church, and if the Lord’d never heard o’ Fogarty and Smitty before I bet He knowed who they was when we got through prayin’. We practiced Monday and went over to Washin’ton that night.

Well, you know what come off. Johnson beat us there and Boehling beat us Wednesday in Philly. With Johnson to come back, twicet if necessary, it looked like a short serious.

And then it begin to rain. It’s a wonder the District o’ Columbia wasn’t washed away. Four straight days of it, includin’ Sunday; and I never seen it come down so hard. A cleanin’ like that might do Pittsburgh or Chi some good, but it looked like wastin’ it in Washin’ton. We was anxious to get the serious over with; and the more it rained, the worse we hated it. We never figured that it was the best thing that could of happened to us!

I’m the guy they’d ought to thank for coppin’ the league pennant. And the rain and me together was what saved us from a awful lickin’ for the big dough. On Sunday night, while we was still layin’ round the hotel in Washin’ton, where we’d been stalled since Thursday, I got my hunch. I went to Red with it.

“Maybe one o’ them fellers could help us out now,” I says.

“What makes you think so?” says Red.

“Well,” I says, “they’ve had time to get back in shape.”

“No use,” says Red. “I was just talkin’ to Smitty in the dinin’ room. He couldn’t even hold his knife. He says his mitt feels just as bad as it did the first day.”

“How about Fogarty?” I ast.

“He ain’t no better off,” says Red. “The worst of it is that neither one o’ them seems to care.”

“Maybe I can wake ’em up,” I says.

“You got my permission to try,” says Red.

Me and Fogarty wasn’t roomin’ together. The trainer was doubled up with him and they had another guy lookin’ out for Smitty. Neither o’ them had put on a suit, but they’d saw us get our two beatin’s from the stand. I found Smitty first and took him into the bar.

“How does it look to you?” I says.

“We’re licked,” says he.

“Don’t be too sure!” I says.

“What do you mean?” he ast me. “What chancet have we got with nobody to pitch?”

“We got somebody to pitch now,” I says.

“Who?” says Smitty.

“Fogarty,” says I. “The doctor says he’s all right and Red’s goin’ to start him tomorrow.”

“You’re crazy!” says Smitty. “The doctor said he wouldn’t be no good till next year.”

“That was pretty near a week ago,” I says. “Besides, that doctor didn’t know nothin’. We had the best doctor in Washin’ton up to see him tonight⁠—the doctor that looks after the President and all the congressmen. He says they’s nothin’ at all the matter with him.”

I left Smitty then and went lookin’ for Fogarty.

I found him in his room gettin’ his poor souper rubbed. I spoke my piece over again. I told him Smitty’d been pronounced cured by the President’s special surgeon and that he was goin’ to start the next day’s game.

An hour later I run into Red, and he was smilin’ like Davis’ wife.

“You’ve did it, old boy!” he says. “They both been after me till I had to duck out in the wet to get away from ’em. They both insist on workin’ tomorrow, and I told ’em I wasn’t goin’ to decide on my pitcher till mornin’.”

“I guess I don’t know nothin’!” I says. “Which one are you goin’ to start?”

“The one that can throw a ball with the least pain,” says Red.

You know the rest of it. The sun shined on us next day, and Smitty shut ’em out and beat Johnson on the wettest grounds I ever seen! I don’t know yet how he gripped a wet ball with that hand, but he done it. And Fogarty’s game Tuesday was even better. If his arm hurt he kept it to himself.

Smitty come back agin Johnson Wednesday and pitched the prettiest game that was ever pitched. Milan and Gandil and them might just as well of used jackstraws as bats, for all the good their swingin’ done. He whiffed plain sixteen men and Johnson’s two-bagger was their only wallop. Nobody didn’t grudge Walter that one, ’cause he pitched a grand game too.

Well, the honor o’ coppin’ the final pastime and winnin’ the title went to Fogarty; and it pleased him about as much as a toothache. Do you know why? ’Cause the papers was full o’ Smitty’s two victories over Johnson and didn’t say much about nothin’ else. Fogarty told me afterward that if he’d thought at the time he’d of refused to pitch Thursday and made Red work him agin the big blond in the seventh game.

“But,” I says, “s’pose Red had pitched Smitty right back and he’d of trimmed ’em and they hadn’t been no seventh game anyway. Then where’d you of been at?”

“That’s right!” he says. “That wop is just lucky enough to of did it, too, even if he can’t pitch up an alley.”

Well, I made a little speech in the clubhouse and collected a purse of a hundred and fifty bucks. I’m goin’ to send it to Jack Barnett as soon as I can get his address. That’ll fix him up on that bet he made with Punch Knoll and give him a little spendin’ money besides. If he hadn’t of told me that stuff in Dayton we’d of been fightin’ the Cardinals for seventh place. And if he’d of told it to some guys they wouldn’t of had sense enough to of token advantage of it.

One o’ the Philly doctors told Red, and Red told me, that we’d prob’ly ruined both o’ them guys for the next season by workin’ ’em in the shape they was in. But I should worry! Between me and you, I ain’t goin’ to be with the Phillies next year. I’m goin’ to manage the Mobile Club; and maybe I can play some in that climate. And I guess I don’t know nothin’ about managin’ a ball club. No; I guess not!

Horseshoes

The series ended Tuesday, but I had stayed in Philadelphia an extra day on the chance of there being some followup stuff worth sending. Nothing had broken loose; so I filed some stuff about what the Athletics and Giants were going to do with their dough, and then caught the eight o’clock train for Chicago.

Having passed up supper in order to get my story away and grab the train, I went to the buffet car right after I’d planted my grips. I sat down at one of the tables and ordered a sandwich. Four salesmen were playing rum at the other table and all the chairs in the car were occupied; so it didn’t surprise me when somebody flopped down in the seat opposite me.

I looked up from my paper and with a little thrill recognized my companion. Now I’ve been experting round the country with ball players so much that it doesn’t usually excite me to meet one face to face, even if he’s a star. I can talk with Tyrus without getting all fussed up. But this particular player had jumped from obscurity to fame so suddenly and had played such an important though brief part in the recent argument between the Macks and McGraws that I couldn’t help being a little awed by his proximity.

It was none other than Grimes, the utility outfielder Connie had been forced to use in the last game because of the injury to Joyce⁠—Grimes, whose miraculous catch in the eleventh inning had robbed Parker of a home run and the Giants of victory, and whose own homer⁠—a fluky one⁠—had given the Athletics another World’s Championship.

I had met Grimes one day during the spring he was with the Cubs, but I knew he wouldn’t remember me. A ball player never recalls a reporter’s face on less than six introductions or his name on less than twenty. However, I resolved to speak to him, and had just mustered sufficient courage to open a conversation when he saved me the trouble.

“Whose picture have they got there?” he asked, pointing to my paper.

“Speed Parker’s,” I replied.

“What do they say about him?” asked Grimes.

“I’ll read it to you,” I said:

“ ‘Speed Parker, McGraw’s great third baseman, is ill in a local hospital with nervous prostration, the result of the strain of the World’s Series, in which he played such a stellar role. Parker is in such a dangerous condition that no one is allowed to see him. Members of the New York team and fans from Gotham called at the hospital today, but were unable to gain admittance to his ward. Philadelphians hope he will recover speedily and will suffer no permanent ill effects from his sickness, for he won their admiration by his work in the series, though he was on a rival team. A lucky catch by Grimes, the Athletics’ substitute outfielder, was all that prevented Parker from winning the title for New York. According to Manager Mack, of the champions, the series would have been over in four games but for Parker’s wonderful exhibition of nerve and⁠—’ ”

“That’ll be a plenty,” Grimes interrupted. “And that’s just what you might expect from one o’ them doughheaded reporters. If all the baseball writers was where they belonged they’d have to build an annex to Matteawan.”

I kept my temper with very little effort⁠—it takes more than a peevish ball player’s remarks to insult one of our fraternity; but I didn’t exactly understand his peeve.

“Doesn’t Parker deserve the bouquet?” I asked.

“Oh, they can boost him all they want to,” said Grimes; “but when they call that catch lucky and don’t mention the fact that Parker is the luckiest guy in the world, somethin’ must be wrong with ’em. Did you see the serious?”

“No,” I lied glibly, hoping to draw from him the cause of his grouch.

“Well,” he said, “you sure missed somethin’. They never was a serious like it before and they won’t never be one again. It went the full seven games and every game was a bear. They was one big innin’ every day and Parker was the big cheese in it. Just as Connie says, the Ath-a-letics would of cleaned ’em in four games but for Parker; but it wasn’t because he’s a great ball player⁠—it was because he was born with a knife, fork and spoon in his mouth, and a rabbit’s foot hung round his neck.

“You may not know it, but I’m Grimes, the guy that made the lucky catch. I’m the guy that won the serious with a hit⁠—a home-run hit; and I’m here to tell you that if I’d had one-tenth o’ Parker’s luck they’d of heard about me long before yesterday. They say my homer was lucky. Maybe it was; but, believe me, it was time things broke for me. They been breakin’ for him all his life.”

“Well,” I said, “his luck must have gone back on him if he’s in a hospital with nervous prostration.”

“Nervous prostration nothin’,” said Grimes. “He’s in a hospital because his face is all out o’ shape and he’s ashamed to appear on the street. I don’t usually do so much talkin’ and I’m ravin’ a little tonight because I’ve had a couple o’ drinks; but⁠—”

“Have another,” said I, ringing for the waiter, “and talk some more.”

“I made two hits yesterday,” Grimes went on, “but the crowd only seen one. I busted up the game and the serious with the one they seen. The one they didn’t see was the one I busted up a guy’s map with⁠—and Speed Parker was the guy. That’s why he’s in a hospital. He may be able to play ball next year; but I’ll bet my share o’ the dough that McGraw won’t reco’nize him when he shows up at Marlin in the spring.”

“When did this come off?” I asked. “And why?”

“It come off outside the clubhouse after yesterday’s battle,” he said; “and I hit him because he called me a name⁠—a name I won’t stand for from him.”

“What did he call you?” I queried, expecting to hear one of the delicate epithets usually applied by conquered to conqueror on the diamond.

“ ‘Horseshoes!’ ” was Grimes’ amazing reply.

“But, good Lord!” I remonstrated, “I’ve heard of ball players calling each other that, and Lucky Stiff, and Four-leaf Clover, ever since I was a foot high, and I never knew them to start fights about it.”

“Well,” said Grimes, “I might as well give you all the dope; and then if you don’t think I was justified I’ll pay your fare from here to wherever you’re goin’. I don’t want you to think I’m kickin’ about trifles⁠—or that I’m kickin’ at all, for that matter. I just want to prove to you that he didn’t have no license to pull that Horseshoes stuff on me and that I only give him what was comin’ to him.”

“Go ahead and shoot,” said I.

“Give us some more o’ the same,” said Grimes to the passing waiter. And then he told me about it.

Maybe you’ve heard that me and Speed Parker was raised in the same town⁠—Ishpeming, Michigan. We was kids together, and though he done all the devilment I got all the lickin’s. When we was about twelve years old Speed throwed a rotten egg at the teacher and I got expelled. That made me sick o’ schools and I wouldn’t never go to one again, though my ol’ man beat me up and the truant officers threatened to have me hung.

Well, while Speed was learnin’ what was the principal products o’ New Hampshire and Texas I was workin’ round the freight-house and drivin’ a dray.

We’d both been playin’ ball all our lives; and when the town organized a semipro club we got jobs with it. We was to draw two bucks apiece for each game and they played every Sunday. We played four games before we got our first pay. They was a hole in my pants pocket as big as the home plate, but I forgot about it and put the dough in there. It wasn’t there when I got home. Speed didn’t have no hole in his pocket⁠—you can bet on that! Afterward the club hired a good outfielder and I was canned. They was huntin’ for another third baseman too; but, o’ course, they didn’t find none and Speed held his job.

The next year they started the Northern Peninsula League. We landed with the home team. The league opened in May and blowed up the third week in June. They paid off all the outsiders first and then had just money enough left to settle with one of us two Ishpeming guys. The night they done the payin’ I was out to my uncle’s farm, so they settled with Speed and told me I’d have to wait for mine. I’m still waitin’!

Gene Higgins, who was manager o’ the Battle Creek Club, lived in Houghton, and that winter we goes over and strikes him for a job. He give it to us and we busted in together two years ago last spring.

I had a good year down there. I hit over .300 and stole all the bases in sight. Speed got along good too, and they was several big-league scouts lookin’ us over. The Chicago Cubs bought Speed outright and four clubs put in a draft for me. Three of ’em⁠—Cleveland and the New York Giants and the Boston Nationals⁠—needed outfielders bad, and it would of been a pipe for me to of made good with any of ’em. But who do you think got me? The same Chicago Cubs; and the only outfielders they had at that time was Schulte and Leach and Good and Williams and Stewart, and one or two others.

Well, I didn’t figure I was any worse off than Speed. The Cubs had Zimmerman at third base and it didn’t look like they was any danger of a busher beatin’ him out; but Zimmerman goes and breaks his leg the second day o’ the season⁠—that’s a year ago last April⁠—and Speed jumps right in as a regular. Do you think anything like that could happen to Schulte or Leach, or any o’ them outfielders? No, sir! I wore out my uniform slidin’ up and down the bench and wonderin’ whether they’d ship me to Fort Worth or Siberia.

Now I want to tell you about the miserable luck Speed had right off the reel. We was playin’ at St. Louis. They had a one-run lead in the eighth, when their pitcher walked Speed with one out. Saier hits a high fly to centre and Parker starts with the crack o’ the bat. Both coachers was yellin’ at him to go back, but he thought they was two out and he was clear round to third base when the ball come down. And Oakes muffs it! O’ course he scored and the game was tied up.

Parker come in to the bench like he’d did something wonderful.

“Did you think they was two out?” ast Hank.

“No,” says Speed, blushin’.

“Then what did you run for?” says Hank.

“I had a hunch he was goin’ to drop the ball,” says Speed; and Hank pretty near falls off the bench.

The next day he come up with one out and the sacks full, and the score tied in the sixth. He smashes one on the ground straight at Hauser and it looked like a cinch double play; but just as Hauser was goin’ to grab it the ball hit a rough spot and hopped a mile over his head. It got between Oakes and Magee and went clear to the fence. Three guys scored and Speed pulled up at third. The papers come out and said the game was won by a three-bagger from the bat o’ Parker, the Cubs’ sensational kid third baseman. Gosh!

We go home to Chi and are havin’ a hot battle with Pittsburgh. This time Speed’s turn come when they was two on and two out, and Pittsburgh a run to the good⁠—I think it was the eighth innin’. Cooper gives him a fast one and he hits it straight up in the air. O’ course the runners started goin’, but it looked hopeless because they wasn’t no wind or high sky to bother anybody. Mowrey and Gibson both goes after the ball; and just as Mowrey was set for the catch Gibson bumps into him and they both fall down. Two runs scored and Speed got to second. Then what does he do but try to steal third⁠—with two out too! And Gibson’s peg pretty near hits the left field seats on the fly.

When Speed comes to the bench Hank says:

“If I was you I’d quit playin’ ball and go to Monte Carlo.”

“What for?” says Speed.

“You’re so dam’ lucky!” says Hank.

“So is Ty Cobb,” says Speed. That’s how he hated himself!

First trip to Cincy we run into a couple of old Ishpeming boys. They took us out one night, and about twelve o’clock I said we’d have to go back to the hotel or we’d get fined. Speed said I had cold feet and he stuck with the boys. I went back alone and Hank caught me comin’ in and put a fifty-dollar plaster on me. Speed stayed out all night long and Hank never knowed it. I says to myself: “Wait till he gets out there and tries to play ball without no sleep!” But the game that day was called off on account o’ rain. Can you beat it?

I remember what he got away with the next afternoon the same as though it happened yesterday. In the second innin’ they walked him with nobody down, and he took a big lead off first base like he always does. Benton throwed over there three or four times to scare him back, and the last time he throwed, Hobby hid the ball. The coacher seen it and told Speed to hold the bag; but he didn’t pay no attention. He started leadin’ right off again and Hobby tried to tag him, but the ball slipped out of his hand and rolled about a yard away. Parker had plenty o’ time to get back; but, instead o’ that, he starts for second. Hobby picked up the ball and shot it down to Groh⁠—and Groh made a square muff.

Parker slides into the bag safe and then gets up and throws out his chest like he’d made the greatest play ever. When the ball’s throwed back to Benton, Speed leads off about thirty foot and stands there in a trance. Clarke signs for a pitch-out and pegs down to second to nip him. He was caught flatfooted⁠—that is, he would of been with a decent throw; but Clarke’s peg went pretty near to Latonia. Speed scored and strutted over to receive our hearty congratulations. Some o’ the boys was laughin’ and he thought they was laughin’ with him instead of at him.

It was in the ninth, though, that he got by with one o’ the worst I ever seen. The Reds was a run behind and Marsans was on third base with two out. Hobby, I think it was, hit one on the ground right at Speed and he picked it up clean. The crowd all got up and started for the exits. Marsans run toward the plate in the faint hope that the peg to first would be wild. All of a sudden the boys on the Cincy bench begun yellin’ at him to slide, and he done so. He was way past the plate when Speed’s throw got to Archer. The bonehead had shot the ball home instead o’ to first base, thinkin’ they was only one down. We was all crazy, believin’ his nut play had let ’em tie it up; but he comes tearin’ in, tellin’ Archer to tag Marsans. So Jim walks over and tags the Cuban, who was brushin’ off his uniform.

“You’re out!” says Klem. “You never touched the plate.”

I guess Marsans knowed the umps was right because he didn’t make much of a holler. But Speed sure got a pannin’ in the clubhouse.

“I suppose you knowed he was goin’ to miss the plate!” says Hank sarcastic as he could.

Everybody on the club roasted him, but it didn’t do no good.

Well, you know what happened to me. I only got into one game with the Cubs⁠—one afternoon when Leach was sick. We was playin’ the Boston bunch and Tyler was workin’ against us. I always had trouble with left-handers and this was one of his good days. I couldn’t see what he throwed up there. I got one foul durin’ the afternoon’s entertainment; and the wind was blowin’ a hundred-mile gale, so that the best outfielder in the world couldn’t judge a fly ball. That Boston bunch must of hit fifty of ’em and they all come to my field.

If I caught any I’ve forgot about it. Couple o’ days after that I got notice o’ my release to Indianapolis.

Parker kept right on all season doin’ the blamedest things you ever heard of and gettin’ by with ’em. One o’ the boys told me about it later. If they was playin’ a doubleheader in St. Louis, with the thermometer at 130 degrees, he’d get put out by the umps in the first innin’ o’ the first game. If he started to steal the catcher’d drop the pitch or somebody’d muff the throw. If he hit a pop fly the sun’d get in somebody’s eyes. If he took a swell third strike with the bases full the umps would call it a ball. If he cut first base by twenty feet the umps would be readin’ the mornin’ paper.

Zimmerman’s leg mended, so that he was all right by June; and then Saier got sick and they tried Speed at first base. He’d never saw the bag before; but things kept on breakin’ for him and he played it like a house afire. The Cubs copped the pennant and Speed got in on the big dough, besides playin’ a whale of a game through the whole serious.

Speed and me both went back to Ishpeming to spend the winter⁠—though the Lord knows it ain’t no winter resort. Our homes was there; and besides, in my case, they was a certain girl livin’ in the old burg.

Parker, o’ course, was the hero and the swell guy when we got home. He’d been in the World’s Serious and had plenty o’ dough in his kick. I come home with nothin’ but my suitcase and a hard-luck story, which I kept to myself. I hadn’t even went good enough in Indianapolis to be sure of a job there again.

That fall⁠—last fall⁠—an uncle o’ Speed’s died over in the Soo and left him ten thousand bucks. I had an uncle down in the Lower Peninsula who was worth five times that much⁠—but he had good health!

This girl I spoke about was the prettiest thing I ever see. I’d went with her in the old days, and when I blew back I found she was still strong for me. They wasn’t a great deal o’ variety in Ishpeming for a girl to pick from. Her and I went to the dance every Saturday night and to church Sunday nights. I called on her Wednesday evenin’s, besides takin’ her to all the shows that come along⁠—rotten as the most o’ them was.

I never knowed Speed was makin’ a play for this doll till along last Feb’uary. The minute I seen what was up I got busy. I took her out sleigh-ridin’ and kept her out in the cold till she’d promised to marry me. We set the date for this fall⁠—I figured I’d know better where I was at by that time.

Well, we didn’t make no secret o’ bein’ engaged; down in the poolroom one night Speed come up and congratulated me. He says:

“You got a swell girl, Dick! I wouldn’t mind bein’ in your place. You’re mighty lucky to cop her out⁠—you old Horseshoes, you!”

“Horseshoes!” I says. “You got a fine license to call anybody Horseshoes! I suppose you ain’t never had no luck?”

“Not like you,” he says.

I was feelin’ too good about grabbin’ the girl to get sore at the time; but when I got to thinkin’ about it a few minutes afterward it made me mad clear through. What right did that bird have to talk about me bein’ lucky?

Speed was playin’ freeze-out at a table near the door, and when I started home some o’ the boys with him says:

“Good night, Dick.”

I said good night and then Speed looked up.

“Good night, Horseshoes!” he says.

That got my nanny this time.

“Shut up, you lucky stiff!” I says. “If you wasn’t so dam’ lucky you’d be sweepin’ the streets.” Then I walks on out.

I was too busy with the girl to see much o’ Speed after that. He left home about the middle o’ the month to go to Tampa with the Cubs. I got notice from Indianapolis that I was sold to Baltimore. I didn’t care much about goin’ there and I wasn’t anxious to leave home under the circumstances, so I didn’t report till late.

When I read in the papers along in April that Speed had been traded to Boston for a couple o’ pitchers I thought: “Gee! He must of lost his rabbit’s foot!” Because, even if the Cubs didn’t cop again, they’d have a city serious with the White Sox and get a bunch o’ dough that way. And they wasn’t no chance in the world for the Boston Club to get nothin’ but their salaries.

It wasn’t another month, though, till Shafer, o’ the Giants, quit baseball and McGraw was up against it for a third baseman. Next thing I knowed Speed was traded to New York and was with another winner⁠—for they never was out o’ first place all season.

I was gettin’ along all right at Baltimore and Dunnie liked me; so I felt like I had somethin’ more than just a one-year job⁠—somethin’ I could get married on. It was all framed that the weddin’ was comin’ off as soon as this season was over; so you can believe I was pullin’ for October to hurry up and come.

One day in August, two months ago, Dunnie come in the clubhouse and handed me the news.

“Rube Oldring’s busted his leg,” he says, “and he’s out for the rest o’ the season. Connie’s got a youngster named Joyce that he can stick in there, but he’s got to have an extra outfielder. He’s made me a good proposition for you and I’m goin’ to let you go. It’ll be pretty soft for you, because they got the pennant cinched and they’ll cut you in on the big money.”

“Yes,” I says; “and when they’re through with me they’ll ship me to Hellangone, and I’ll be draggin’ down about seventy-five bucks a month next year.”

“Nothin’ like that,” says Dunnie. “If he don’t want you next season he’s got to ask for waivers; and if you get out o’ the big league you come right back here. That’s all framed.”

So that’s how I come to get with the Ath-a-letics. Connie give me a nice, comf’table seat in one corner o’ the bench and I had the pleasure o’ watchin’ a real ball club perform once every afternoon and sometimes twice.

Connie told me that as soon as they had the flag cinched he was goin’ to lay off some o’ his regulars and I’d get a chance to play.

Well, they cinched it the fourth day o’ September and our next engagement was with Washin’ton on Labor Day. We had two games and I was in both of ’em. And I broke in with my usual lovely luck, because the pitchers I was ast to face was Boehling, a nasty left-hander, and this guy Johnson.

The mornin’ game was Boehling’s and he wasn’t no worse than some o’ the rest of his kind. I only whiffed once and would of had a triple if Milan hadn’t run from here to New Orleans and stole one off me.

I’m not boastin’ about my first experience with Johnson though. They can’t never tell me he throws them balls with his arm. He’s got a gun concealed about his person and he shoots ’em up there. I was leadin’ off in Murphy’s place and the game was a little delayed in startin’, because I’d watched the big guy warm up and wasn’t in no hurry to get to that plate. Before I left the bench Connie says:

“Don’t try to take no healthy swing. Just meet ’em and you’ll get along better.”

So I tried to just meet the first one he throwed; but when I stuck out my bat Henry was throwin’ the pill back to Johnson. Then I thought: Maybe if I start swingin’ now at the second one I’ll hit the third one. So I let the second one come over and the umps guessed it was another strike, though I’ll bet a thousand bucks he couldn’t see it no more’n I could.

While Johnson was still windin’ up to pitch again I started to swing⁠—and the big cuss crosses me with a slow one. I lunged at it twice and missed it both times, and the force o’ my wallop throwed me clean back to the bench. The Ath-a-letics was all laughin’ at me and I laughed too, because I was glad that much of it was over.

McInnes gets a base hit off him in the second innin’ and I ast him how he done it.

“He’s a friend o’ mine,” says Jack, “and he lets up when he pitches to me.”

I made up my mind right there that if I was goin’ to be in the league next year I’d go out and visit Johnson this winter and get acquainted.

I wished before the day was over that I was hittin’ in the catcher’s place, because the fellers down near the tail-end of the battin’ order only had to face him three times. He fanned me on three pitched balls again in the third, and when I come up in the sixth he scared me to death by pretty near beanin’ me with the first one.

“Be careful!” says Henry. “He’s gettin’ pretty wild and he’s liable to knock you away from your uniform.”

“Don’t he never curve one?” I ast.

“Sure!” says Henry. “Do you want to see his curve?”

“Yes,” I says, knowin’ the hook couldn’t be no worse’n the fast one.

So he give me three hooks in succession and I missed ’em all; but I felt more comf’table than when I was duckin’ his fast ball. In the ninth he hit my bat with a curve and the ball went on the ground to McBride. He booted it, but throwed me out easy⁠—because I was so surprised at not havin’ whiffed that I forgot to run!

Well, I went along like that for the rest o’ the season, runnin’ up against the best pitchers in the league and not exactly murderin’ ’em. Everything I tried went wrong, and I was smart enough to know that if anything had depended on the games I wouldn’t of been in there for two minutes. Joyce and Strunk and Murphy wasn’t jealous o’ me a bit; but they was glad to take turns restin’, and I didn’t care much how I went so long as I was sure of a job next year.

I’d wrote to the girl a couple o’ times askin’ her to set the exact date for our weddin’; but she hadn’t paid no attention. She said she was glad I was with the Ath-a-letics, but she thought the Giants was goin’ to beat us. I might of suspected from that that somethin’ was wrong, because not even a girl would pick the Giants to trim that bunch of ourn. Finally, the day before the serious started, I sent her a kind o’ sassy letter sayin’ I guessed it was up to me to name the day, and askin’ whether October twentieth was all right. I told her to wire me yes or no.

I’d been readin’ the dope about Speed all season, and I knowed he’d had a whale of a year and that his luck was right with him; but I never dreamed a man could have the Lord on his side as strong as Speed did in that World’s Serious! I might as well tell you all the dope, so long as you wasn’t there.

The first game was on our grounds and Connie give us a talkin’ to in the clubhouse beforehand.

“The shorter this serious is,” he says, “the better for us. If it’s a long serious we’re goin’ to have trouble, because McGraw’s got five pitchers he can work and we’ve got about three; so I want you boys to go at ’em from the jump and play ’em off their feet. Don’t take things easy, because it ain’t goin’ to be no snap. Just because we’ve licked ’em before ain’t no sign we’ll do it this time.”

Then he calls me to one side and ast me what I knowed about Parker.

“You was with the Cubs when he was, wasn’t you?” he says.

“Yes,” I says; “and he’s the luckiest stiff you ever seen! If he got stewed and fell in the gutter he’d catch a fish.”

“I don’t like to hear a good ball player called lucky,” says Connie. “He must have a lot of ability or McGraw wouldn’t use him regular. And he’s been hittin’ about .340 and played a bang-up game at third base. That can’t be all luck.”

“Wait till you see him,” I says; “and if you don’t say he’s the luckiest guy in the world you can sell me to the Boston Bloomer Girls. He’s so lucky,” I says, “that if they traded him to the St. Louis Browns they’d have the pennant cinched by the Fourth o’ July.”

And I’ll bet Connie was willin’ to agree with me before it was over.

Well, the Chief worked against the Big Rube in that game. We beat ’em, but they give us a battle and it was Parker that made it close. We’d gone along nothin’ and nothin’ till the seventh, and then Rube walks Collins and Baker lifts one over that little old wall. You’d think by this time them New York pitchers would know better than to give that guy anything he can hit.

In their part o’ the ninth the Chief still had ’em shut out and two down, and the crowd was goin’ home; but Doyle gets hit in the sleeve with a pitched ball and it’s Speed’s turn. He hits a foul pretty near straight up, but Schang misjudges it. Then he lifts another one and this time McInnes drops it. He’d ought to of been out twice. The Chief tries to make him hit at a bad one then, because he’d got him two strikes and nothin’. He hit at it all right⁠—kissed it for three bases between Strunk and Joyce! And it was a wild pitch that he hit. Doyle scores, o’ course, and the bugs suddenly decide not to go home just yet. I fully expected to see him steal home and get away with it, but Murray cut into the first ball and lined out to Barry.

Plank beat Matty two to one the next day in New York, and again Speed and his rabbit’s foot give us an awful argument. Matty wasn’t so good as usual and we really ought to of beat him bad. Two different times Strunk was on second waitin’ for any kind o’ wallop, and both times Barry cracked ’em down the third-base line like a shot. Speed stopped the first one with his stomach and extricated the pill just in time to nail Barry at first base and retire the side. The next time he throwed his glove in front of his face in self-defense and the ball stuck in it.

In the sixth innin’ Schang was on third base and Plank on first, and two down, and Murphy combed an awful one to Speed’s left. He didn’t have time to stoop over and he just stuck out his foot. The ball hit it and caromed in two hops right into Doyle’s hands on second base before Plank got there. Then in the seventh Speed bunts one and Baker trips and falls goin’ after it or he’d of threw him out a mile. They was two gone; so Speed steals second, and, o’ course, Schang has to make a bad peg right at that time and lets him go to third. Then Collins boots one on Murray and they’ve got a run. But it didn’t do ’em no good, because Collins and Baker and McInnes come up in the ninth and walloped ’em where Parker couldn’t reach ’em.

Comin’ back to Philly on the train that night, I says to Connie:

“What do you think o’ that Parker bird now?”

“He’s lucky, all right,” says Connie smilin’; “but we won’t hold it against him if he don’t beat us with it.”

“It ain’t too late,” I says. “He ain’t pulled his real stuff yet.”

The whole bunch was talkin’ about him and his luck, and sayin’ it was about time for things to break against him. I warned ’em that they wasn’t no chance⁠—that it was permanent with him.

Bush and Tesreau hooked up next day and neither o’ them had much stuff. Everybody was hittin’ and it looked like anybody’s game right up to the ninth. Speed had got on every time he come up⁠—the wind blowin’ his fly balls away from the outfielders and the infielders bootin’ when he hit ’em on the ground.

When the ninth started the score was seven apiece. Connie and McGraw both had their whole pitchin’ staffs warmin’ up. The crowd was wild, because they’d been all kinds of action. They wasn’t no danger of anybody’s leavin’ their seats before this game was over.

Well, Bescher is walked to start with and Connie’s about ready to give Bush the hook; but Doyle pops out tryin’ to bunt. Then Speed gets two strikes and two balls, and it looked to me like the next one was right over the heart; but Connolly calls it a ball and gives him another chance. He whales the groove ball to the fence in left center and gets round to third on it, while Bescher scores. Right then Bush comes out and the Chief goes in. He whiffs Murray and has two strikes on Merkle when Speed makes a break for home⁠—and, o’ course, that was the one ball Schang dropped in the whole serious!

They had a two-run lead on us then and it looked like a cinch for them to hold it, because the minute Tesreau showed a sign o’ weakenin’ McGraw was sure to holler for Matty or the Rube. But you know how quick that bunch of ourn can make a two-run lead look sick. Before McGraw could get Jeff out o’ there we had two on the bases.

Then Rube comes in and fills ’em up by walkin’ Joyce. It was Eddie’s turn to wallop and if he didn’t do nothin’ we had Baker comin’ up next. This time Collins saved Baker the trouble and whanged one clear to the woods. Everybody scored but him⁠—and he could of, too, if it’d been necessary.

In the clubhouse the boys naturally felt pretty good. We’d copped three in a row and it looked like we’d make it four straight, because we had the Chief to send back at ’em the followin’ day.

“Your friend Parker is lucky,” the boys says to me, “but it don’t look like he could stop us now.”

I felt the same way and was consultin’ the timetables to see whether I could get a train out o’ New York for the West next evenin’. But do you think Speed’s luck was ready to quit? Not yet! And it’s a wonder we didn’t all go nuts durin’ the next few days. If words could kill, Speed would of died a thousand times. And I wish he had!

They wasn’t no record-breakin’ crowd out when we got to the Polo Grounds. I guess the New York bugs was pretty well discouraged and the bettin’ was eight to five that we’d cop that battle and finish it. The Chief was the only guy that warmed up for us and McGraw didn’t have no choice but to use Matty, with the whole thing dependin’ on this game.

They went along like the two swell pitchers they was till Speed’s innin’, which in this battle was the eighth. Nobody scored, and it didn’t look like they was ever goin’ to till Murphy starts off that round with a perfect bunt and Joyce sacrifices him to second. All Matty had to do then was to get rid o’ Collins and Baker⁠—and that’s about as easy as sellin’ silk socks to an Eskimo.

He didn’t give Eddie nothin’ he wanted to hit, though; and finally he slaps one on the ground to Doyle. Larry made the play to first base and Murphy moved to third. We all figured Matty’d walk Baker then, and he done it. Connie sends Baker down to second on the first pitch to McInnes, but Meyers don’t pay no attention to him⁠—they was playin’ for McInnes and wasn’t takin’ no chances o’ throwin’ the ball away.

Well, the count goes to three and two on McInnes and Matty comes with a curve⁠—he’s got some curve too; but Jack happened to meet it and⁠—Blooie! Down the left foul line where he always hits! I never seen a ball hit so hard in my life. No infielder in the world could of stopped it. But I’ll give you a thousand bucks if that ball didn’t go kerplunk right into the third bag and stop as dead as George Washington! It was child’s play for Speed to pick it up and heave it over to Merkle before Jack got there. If anybody else had been playin’ third base the bag would of ducked out o’ the way o’ that wallop; but even the bases themselves was helpin’ him out.

The two runs we ought to of had on Jack’s smash would of been just enough to beat ’em, because they got the only run o’ the game in their half⁠—or, I should say, the Lord give it to ’em.

Doyle’d been throwed out and up come Parker, smilin’. The minute I seen him smile I felt like somethin’ was comin’ off and I made the remark on the bench.

Well, the Chief pitched one right at him and he tried to duck. The ball hit his bat and went on a line between Jack and Eddie. Speed didn’t know he’d hit it till the guys on the bench wised him up. Then he just had time to get to first base. They tried the hit-and-run on the second ball and Murray lifts a high fly that Murphy didn’t have to move for. Collins pulled the old bluff about the ball bein’ on the ground and Barry yells, “Go on! Go on!” like he was the coacher. Speed fell for it and didn’t know where the ball was no more’n a rabbit; he just run his fool head off and we was gettin’ all ready to laugh when the ball come down and Murphy dropped it!

If Parker had stuck near first base, like he ought to of done, he couldn’t of got no farther’n second; but with the start he got he was pretty near third when Murphy made the muff, and it was a cinch for him to score. The next two guys was easy outs; so they wouldn’t of had a run except for Speed’s boner. We couldn’t do nothin’ in the ninth and we was licked.

Well, that was a tough one to lose; but we figured that Matty was through and we’d wind it up the next day, as we had Plank ready to send back at ’em. We wasn’t afraid o’ the Rube, because he hadn’t never bothered Collins and Baker much.

The two left-handers come together just like everybody’d doped it and it was about even up to the eighth. Plank had been goin’ great and, though the score was two and two, they’d got their two on boots and we’d hit ourn in. We went after Rube in our part o’ the eighth and knocked him out. Demaree stopped us after we’d scored two more.

“It’s all over but the shoutin’!” says Davis on the bench.

“Yes,” I says, “unless that seventh son of a seventh son gets up there again.”

He did, and he come up after they’d filled the bases with a boot, a base hit and a walk with two out. I says to Davis:

“If I was Plank I’d pass him and give ’em one run.”

“That wouldn’t be no baseball,” says Davis⁠—“not with Murray comin’ up.”

Well, it mayn’t of been no baseball, but it couldn’t of turned out worse if they’d did it that way. Speed took a healthy at the first ball; but it was a hook and he caught it on the handle, right up near his hands. It started outside the first-base line like a foul and then changed its mind and rolled in. Schang run away from the plate, because it looked like it was up to him to make the play. He picked the ball up and had to make the peg in a hurry.

His throw hit Speed right on top o’ the head and bounded off like it had struck a cement sidewalk. It went clear over to the seats and before McInnes could get it three guys had scored and Speed was on third base. He was left there, but that didn’t make no difference. We was licked again and for the first time the gang really begun to get scared.

We went over to New York Sunday afternoon and we didn’t do no singin’ on the way. Some o’ the fellers tried to laugh, but it hurt ’em. Connie sent us to bed early, but I don’t believe none o’ the bunch got much sleep⁠—I know I didn’t; I was worryin’ too much about the serious and also about the girl, who hadn’t sent me no telegram like I’d ast her to. Monday mornin’ I wired her askin’ what was the matter and tellin’ her I was gettin’ tired of her foolishness. O’ course I didn’t make it so strong as that⁠—but the telegram cost me a dollar and forty cents.

Connie had the choice o’ two pitchers for the sixth game. He could use Bush, who’d been slammed round pretty hard last time out, or the Chief, who’d only had two days’ rest. The rest of ’em⁠—outside o’ Plank⁠—had a epidemic o’ sore arms. Connie finally picked Bush, so’s he could have the Chief in reserve in case we had to play a seventh game. McGraw started Big Jeff and we went at it.

It wasn’t like the last time these two guys had hooked up. This time they both had somethin’, and for eight innin’s runs was as scarce as Chinese policemen. They’d been chances to score on both sides, but the big guy and Bush was both tight in the pinches. The crowd was plumb nuts and yelled like Indians every time a fly ball was caught or a strike called. They’d of got their money’s worth if they hadn’t been no ninth; but, believe me, that was some round!

They was one out when Barry hit one through the box for a base. Schang walked, and it was Bush’s turn. Connie told him to bunt, but he whiffed in the attempt. Then Murphy comes up and walks⁠—and the bases are choked. Young Joyce had been pie for Tesreau all day or else McGraw might of changed pitchers right there. Anyway he left Big Jeff in and he beaned Joyce with a fast one. It sounded like a tire blowin’ out. Joyce falls over in a heap and we chase out there, thinkin’ he’s dead; but he ain’t, and pretty soon he gets up and walks down to first base. Tesreau had forced in a run and again we begun to count the winner’s end. Matty comes in to prevent further damage and Collins flies the side out.

“Hold ’em now! Work hard!” we says to young Bush, and he walks out there just as cool as though he was goin’ to hit fungoes.

McGraw sends up a pinch hitter for Matty and Bush whiffed him. Then Bescher flied out. I was prayin’ that Doyle would end it, because Speed’s turn come after his’n; so I pretty near fell dead when Larry hit safe.

Speed had his old smile and even more chest than usual when he come up there, swingin’ five or six bats. He didn’t wait for Doyle to try and steal, or nothin’. He lit into the first ball, though Bush was tryin’ to waste it. I seen the ball go high in the air toward left field, and then I picked up my glove and got ready to beat it for the gate. But when I looked out to see if Joyce was set, what do you think I seen? He was lyin’ flat on the ground! That blow on the head had got him just as Bush was pitchin’ to Speed. He’d flopped over and didn’t no more know what was goin’ on than if he’d croaked.

Well, everybody else seen it at the same time; but it was too late. Strunk made a run for the ball, but they wasn’t no chance for him to get near it. It hit the ground about ten feet back o’ where Joyce was lyin’ and bounded way over to the end o’ the foul line. You don’t have to be told that Doyle and Parker both scored and the serious was tied up.

We carried Joyce to the clubhouse and after a while he come to. He cried when he found out what had happened. We cheered him up all we could, but he was a pretty sick guy. The trainer said he’d be all right, though, for the final game.

They tossed up a coin to see where they’d play the seventh battle and our club won the toss; so we went back to Philly that night and cussed Parker clear across New Jersey. I was so sore I kicked the stuffin’ out o’ my seat.

You probably heard about the excitement in the burg yesterday mornin’. The demand for tickets was somethin’ fierce and some of ’em sold for as high as twenty-five bucks apiece. Our club hadn’t been lookin’ for no seventh game and they was some tall hustlin’ done round that old ball park.

I started out to the grounds early and bought some New York papers to read on the car. They was a big story that Speed Parker, the Giants’ hero, was goin’ to be married a week after the end o’ the serious. It didn’t give the name o’ the girl, sayin’ Speed had refused to tell it. I figured she must be some dame he’d met round the circuit somewheres.

They was another story by one o’ them smart baseball reporters sayin’ that Parker, on his way up to the plate, had saw that Joyce was about ready to faint and had hit the fly ball to left field on purpose. Can you beat it?

I was goin’ to show that to the boys in the clubhouse, but the minute I blowed in there I got some news that made me forget about everything else. Joyce was very sick and they’d took him to a hospital. It was up to me to play!

Connie come over and ast me whether I’d ever hit against Matty. I told him I hadn’t, but I’d saw enough of him to know he wasn’t no worse’n Johnson. He told me he was goin’ to let me hit second⁠—in Joyce’s place⁠—because he didn’t want to bust up the rest of his combination. He also told me to take my orders from Strunk about where to play for the batters.

“Where shall I play for Parker?” I says, tryin’ to joke and pretend I wasn’t scared to death.

“I wisht I could tell you,” says Connie. “I guess the only thing to do when he comes up is to get down on your knees and pray.”

The rest o’ the bunch slapped me on the back and give me all the encouragement they could. The place was jammed when we went out on the field. They may of been bigger crowds before, but they never was packed together so tight. I doubt whether they was even room enough left for Falkenberg to sit down.

The afternoon papers had printed the stuff about Joyce bein’ out of it, so the bugs was wise that I was goin’ to play. They watched me pretty close in battin’ practice and give me a hand whenever I managed to hit one hard. When I was out catchin’ fungoes the guys in the bleachers cheered me and told me they was with me; but I don’t mind tellin’ you that I was as nervous as a bride.

They wasn’t no need for the announcers to tip the crowd off to the pitchers. Everybody in the United States and Cuba knowed that the Chief’d work for us and Matty for them. The Chief didn’t have no trouble with ’em in the first innin’. Even from where I stood I could see that he had a lot o’ stuff. Bescher and Doyle popped out and Speed whiffed.

Well, I started out makin’ good, with reverse English, in our part. Fletcher booted Murphy’s ground ball and I was sent up to sacrifice. I done a complete job of it⁠—sacrificin’ not only myself but Murphy with a pop fly that Matty didn’t have to move for. That spoiled whatever chance we had o’ gettin’ the jump on ’em; but the boys didn’t bawl me for it.

“That’s all right, old boy. You’re all right!” they said on the bench⁠—if they’d had a gun they’d of shot me.

I didn’t drop no fly balls in the first six innin’s⁠—because none was hit out my way. The Chief was so good that they wasn’t hittin’ nothin’ out o’ the infield. And we wasn’t doin’ nothin’ with Matty, either. I led off in the fourth and fouled the first one. I didn’t molest the other two. But if Connie and the gang talked about me they done it internally. I come up again⁠—with Murphy on third base and two gone in the sixth, and done my little whiffin’ specialty. And still the only people that panned me was the thirty thousand that had paid for the privilege!

My first fieldin’ chance come in the seventh. You’d of thought that I’d of had my nerve back by that time; but I was just as scared as though I’d never saw a crowd before. It was just as well that they was two out when Merkle hit one to me. I staggered under it and finally it hit me on the shoulder. Merkle got to second, but the Chief whiffed the next guy. I was gave some cross looks on the bench and I shouldn’t of blamed the fellers if they’d cut loose with some language; but they didn’t.

They’s no use in me tellin’ you about none o’ the rest of it⁠—except what happened just before the start o’ the eleventh and durin’ that innin’, which was sure the big one o’ yesterday’s pastime⁠—both for Speed and yours sincerely.

The scoreboard was still a row o’ ciphers and Speed’d had only a fair amount o’ luck. He’d made a scratch base hit and robbed our bunch of a couple o’ real ones with impossible stops.

When Schang flied out and wound up our tenth I was leanin’ against the end of our bench. I heard my name spoke, and I turned round and seen a boy at the door.

“Right here!” I says; and he give me a telegram.

“Better not open it till after the game,” says Connie.

“Oh, no; it ain’t no bad news,” I said, for I figured it was an answer from the girl. So I opened it up and read it on the way to my position. It said:

Forgive me, Dick⁠—and forgive Speed too. Letter follows.

Well, sir, I ain’t no baby, but for a minute I just wanted to sit down and bawl. And then, all of a sudden, I got so mad I couldn’t see. I run right into Baker as he was pickin’ up his glove. Then I give him a shove and called him some name, and him and Barry both looked at me like I was crazy⁠—and I was. When I got out in left field I stepped on my own foot and spiked it. I just had to hurt somebody.

As I remember it the Chief fanned the first two of ’em. Then Doyle catches one just right and lams it up against the fence back o’ Murphy. The ball caromed round some and Doyle got all the way to third base. Next thing I seen was Speed struttin’ up to the plate. I run clear in from my position.

“Kill him!” I says to the Chief. “Hit him in the head and kill him, and I’ll go to jail for it!”

“Are you off your nut?” says the Chief. “Go out there and play ball⁠—and quit ravin’.”

Barry and Baker led me away and give me a shove out toward left. Then I heard the crack o’ the bat and I seen the ball comin’ a mile a minute. It was headed between Strunk and I and looked like it would go out o’ the park. I don’t remember runnin’ or nothin’ about it till I run into the concrete wall head first. They told me afterward and all the papers said that it was the greatest catch ever seen. And I never knowed I’d caught the ball!

Some o’ the managers have said my head was pretty hard, but it wasn’t as hard as that concrete. I was pretty near out, but they tell me I walked to the bench like I wasn’t hurt at all. They also tell me that the crowd was a bunch o’ ravin’ maniacs and was throwin’ money at me. I guess the ground-keeper’ll get it.

The boys on the bench was all talkin’ at once and slappin’ me on the back, but I didn’t know what it was about. Somebody told me pretty soon that it was my turn to hit and I picked up the first bat I come to and starts for the plate. McInnes come runnin’ after me and ast me whether I didn’t want my own bat. I cussed him and told him to mind his own business.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out afterward that they was two out. The bases was empty. I’ll tell you just what I had in my mind: I wasn’t thinkin’ about the ball game; I was determined that I was goin’ to get to third base and give that guy my spikes. If I didn’t hit one worth three bases, or if I didn’t hit one at all, I was goin’ to run till I got round to where Speed was, and then slide into him and cut him to pieces!

Right now I can’t tell you whether I hit a fast ball, or a slow ball, or a hook, or a fader⁠—but I hit somethin’. It went over Bescher’s head like a shot and then took a crazy bound. It must of struck a rock or a pop bottle, because it hopped clear over the fence and landed in the bleachers.

Mind you, I learned this afterward. At the time I just knowed I’d hit one somewheres and I starts round the bases. I speeded up when I got near third and took a runnin’ jump at a guy I thought was Parker. I missed him and sprawled all over the bag. Then, all of a sudden, I come to my senses. All the Ath-a-letics was out there to run home with me and it was one o’ them I’d tried to cut. Speed had left the field. The boys picked me up and seen to it that I went on and touched the plate. Then I was carried into the clubhouse by the crazy bugs.

Well, they had a celebration in there and it was a long time before I got a chance to change my clothes. The boys made a big fuss over me. They told me they’d intended to give me five hundred bucks for my divvy, but now I was goin’ to get a full share.

“Parker ain’t the only lucky guy!” says one of ’em. “But even if that ball hadn’t of took that crazy hop you’d of had a triple.”

A triple! That’s just what I’d wanted; and he called me lucky for not gettin’ it!

The Giants was dressin’ in the other part o’ the clubhouse; and when I finally come out there was Speed, standin’ waitin’ for some o’ the others. He seen me comin’ and he smiled. “Hello, Horseshoes!” he says.

He won’t smile no more for a while⁠—it’ll hurt too much. And if any girl wants him when she sees him now⁠—with his nose over shakin’ hands with his ear, and his jaw a couple o’ feet foul⁠—she’s welcome to him. They won’t be no contest!

Grimes leaned over to ring for the waiter.

“Well,” he said, “what about it?”

“You won’t have to pay my fare,” I told him.

“I’ll buy a drink anyway,” said he. “You’ve been a good listener⁠—and I had to get it off my chest.”

“Maybe they’ll have to postpone the wedding,” I said.

“No,” said Grimes. “The weddin’ will take place the day after tomorrow⁠—and I’ll bat for Mr. Parker. Did you think I was goin’ to let him get away with it?”

“What about next year?” I asked.

“I’m goin’ back to the Ath-a-letics,” he said. “And I’m goin’ to hire somebody to call me ‘Horseshoes!’ before every game⁠—because I can sure play that old baseball when I’m mad.”

Back to Baltimore

Well, boys, I’m goin’ right through to Pittsburgh with you if you don’t mind, and I ain’t been traded to your bunch nor the Pirates neither. It’ll be in all the papers tonight or tomorrow mornin’, so they ain’t no use o’ me keepin’ it a secret. I’ve jumped to the Baltimore Feds, and whether Knabe is figurin’ on usin’ me regular or settin’ me on the bench or givin’ me a job washin’ undershirts, I don’t know or I don’t givadam. I couldn’t be no worse off than I was up there.

Managin’ a club may be all OK if the directors is all bachelors and has all o’ them tooken a oath not to never get married. But when a man’s got a wife, they ain’t no tellin’ when he’s goin’ to die, and when he dies and she gets a hold o’ the ball club, good night. If they ever is a skirt elected President o’ the United States, I’ll move to Paris or Europe or somewheres, if I have to walk.

As for this here Mrs. Hayes, the dope about her lettin’ the directors run the club was all bunk. She’s been the boss ever since the old bird croaked, or else I’d of stuck there and finished higher with that gang than they finished since Frank Selee had ’em.

Well, sir, I’m canned out of a managin’ job, and I’m through with the big league, I guess, and I’m goin’ back where I started in at⁠—Baltimore. But you don’t need to waste no sympathy on me. I’m gettin’ as much dough as they give me up there, and they won’t be no chancet o’ me bein’ drove crazy by a skirt. Them Baltimore people used to like me OK when Dunnie had me, and I guess I ain’t did nothin’ since to make ’em sore. I’ll give ’em the best I got, and I’ll let Knabe do all the worryin’. I’m off’n that stuff, and if any boob ever offers me another managin’ job, I’ll bean him with a crowbar or somethin’.

I bet you’ll see in a few days where Mrs. Hayes gets through bein’ a widow, and her next name’s goin’ to be Mrs. William Baker Junior. They ain’t no danger o’ me forgettin’ that name. The guy that owns it is a ball player, but the only thing alike about he and the Baker Connie Mack’s got is that they both listen with their ears. You fellas didn’t never get a look at this bird because he was so good that we didn’t only play him in one game, and that was against the Philly club. If him and her does hook up, he won’t need to play no more. With them runnin’ the team together, they’ll be enough comedy without him puttin’ on a uniform anymore.

You knowed Old Man Hayes, o’ course. He was a good old scout, but he pulled a lot o’ boners, one o’ which was him marryin’ this doll. She’s a handsome devil all right; I’ll slip her that much. But he should ought to of knew that he didn’t cop her because she was a-stuck on him. She had it doped that he was about all in, and it wouldn’t be long till the dough was all hern. His heart was bad, and they was two or three other things the matter with him, and havin’ her round didn’t make him no healthier. At that, he’d of croaked sooner or later without no female help.

He was sure nuts over his ball club, and it hurt him every time we lose a game. You can see where he was hurt pretty often last year. At that, Bill Fox was gettin’ by all right with the managin’ job, when you figure the bunch he had. But finishin’ seventh didn’t make no hit with the old man, even if we thought we done pretty well to stay in the league and not get arrested. Anyway, Bill got canned and the job was gave to me. If I hadn’t ’ve needed the money pretty bad, I wouldn’t never ’ve tooken it.

Them deals I made last winter helped us a whole lot, and when we got down South this spring, we wasn’t a bad lookin’ club, barrin’ one or two positions. We was such a improvement over the old gang that the old man lost his needle and was countin’ the world’s serious receipts along in March. He kept a-askin’ me who did I think would be in the race with us. If I had of told him the truth and says we couldn’t win no pennant unless your bunch and the New York club was killed in a railroad wreck, he’d of canned me. So what was I to do but tell him we had a good fightin’ chancet to cop, when we didn’t have no more chancet than a rabbit or somethin’. I says the luck would have to be with us and if it was we might surprise everybody. That luck stuff was to be my alibi when we landed where we belonged.

The season opened and we got away good. McGraw’s pitchers was in no shape, and we skun ’em three out o’ the first four. We broke even with Philly and give Brooklyn a good lickin’. We was right out in front along with you fellas. Then we struck a slump, and you guys and Philly both goes ahead of us. The old man called me in and ast me why didn’t we stay in first place. I might of told him it was because we knowed we didn’t have no business there. But I stalled and says I didn’t want to have my club go too fast at first or they might maybe get tired out.

Then we come West in May, and the old boy come along with us. We opened up in Cincy and broke even with ’em, though they looked like the worst club in the world. The old man wasn’t feelin’ well, and a doctor told him he should ought to go home, but he says he would go to St. Louis with us. Higgins trimmed us four straight, and that finished the boss. He grabbed a train for home, but croaked on the way there.

It was gave out in the papers that young Mrs. Hayes would be president o’ the club, but I didn’t take no stock in that till we come in off’n the road. I was like everybody else; I figured that Williams, the vice president, and them other directors would run things.

But when we got home, after a rotten trip, she ast me to come and see her at the office. I goes, and there she is, walkin’ up and down the rug just like her husband was always doin’. When we had shooken hands, she says:

“Well, Mr. Dixon, you didn’t have no success in the West.”

“No,” I says. “We run into some tough luck.”

Then she ast me was it tough luck or rotten ball playin’, and I says it was some o’ both. Then she says:

“We’ll try and stren’then your team. I and Mr. Williams, the vice president, has decided we got to spend some dough for new players. I have gave Mr. Sullivan orders to go scoutin’ round the colleges.”

“Lay off’n the colleges,” I says. “We don’t need no more ornaments. What we should ought to have is some ball players. Besides that, you can’t buy no men off’n the colleges. They don’t sell ’em.”

She says: “I guess we can get a hold of ’em if we slip ’em big sal’ries.” Then she says: “I’d like to make this here club a team of gentlemen, and they’re more gentlemen in the colleges than anywheres else.”

They was nuthin’ for me to do then but beat it out o’ the office and get a drink o’ brandy.

We kept on playin’ our best, and that was about good enough to get us beat oftener than we win. But I was satisfied with the way we was goin’. I knowed we wasn’t topheavy with class. Sullivan came in from scoutin’, and I ast him where was his collegers. He says:

“I’ve been everywhere in the rah-rah circuit, and I ain’t saw no ball player that could carry bats in the Japanese League.”

So I figured we wasn’t goin’ to be pestered with none o’ them there birds that does nothin’ but kick the ball round because they got the habit playin’ football.

The skirt had been travelin’ a lot and hadn’t gave me no bother to speak of. But when she come back, my troubles begin. She come out to the games and set in a box clos’t up to our bench. We was playin’ Brooklyn one day, and Rucker was good. We was a couple o’ runs behind along in the eighth and no hope o’ catchin’ up, with him goin’ that way. They was two of us out, and then Rucker walks somebody and Red Smith boots one, so they was two on when it come my turn to hit. I starts up, but she calls me over to the box.

“Mr. Dixon,” she says, “this would be a good place for a home run.”

I says: “Yes, this is the right spot. I s’pose you’d like to see me hit one.”

“You bet I would,” she says.

“Well,” I says, “which fence do you think I should ought to hit it over?”

“I don’t care which fence,” she says.

Well, I goes up there and done my best to obey orders. Nobody never swung no harder’n me, and the way I was wallopin’ at ’em, I’d of knocked one o’ them walls down if I had of connected. But I missed three and we didn’t score.

Do you remember the day you fellas give us that awful beatin’⁠—twelve to nothin’? Cheney worked for you and we didn’t never have a look-in. What do you think she pulled after that game? She waited for me outside o’ the park and says she wished I’d tell Mr. O’Day not to never let Cheney pitch there no more.

I says: “It wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s if he never pitched nowheres.”

“Well,” she says, “I hope you’ll see to it, because my doctor tells me the spitball ain’t sanitary.”

Then, one day, she ast me what made Hub’s cheek bulge out so when he worked. I told her he had a ulcer on his teeth. She ast why his face was swole up that way only when he was pitchin’, and I told her I didn’t never work him only on days when his teeth was pretty sore, so’s the batters’d feel sorry for him. She must of knew I was kiddin’, but she never called me for it.

She had me worried to death with stuff like that. She wanted the suits sent to the laundry after all the games and says all of us should ought to quit slidin’ because it dirtied us up so much. I got so’s I stuck in the clubhouse a couple of hours after the games, so’s to be sure and not run into her when I come out.

Well, she goes down to Yale college on some party or somethin’, and when she come back, we was just finishin’ up with the Western clubs. We was out in practice one day when I seen her beckonin’ to me. I goes over to where she was settin’, and she says:

“I’ve got you a new player.”

“Who is he?” I says.

She says: “His name is Mr. Baker, and he has just went through Yale. He will meet you in New York.”

Then I ast her what position did he play, and she says: “He ain’t made up his mind yet. He has been busy learnin’ his lessons.”

Then I ast her wasn’t he on the Yale team, and she says: “No, but he could of been of been if he had of wanted to. The coach told him so, but he didn’t have no time to play. You could tell the minute you seen him that he was a born ath-a-lete and he’s a gentleman too, and I b’lieve he will help you in more ways than just one way.”

“Well,” I says, “they’s only one way he could help us and that is to get in there and play ball. If he can do that, I don’t care if he’s a gentleman or a policeman.”

Then I ast her what sal’ry was he goin’ to get.

“Oh,” she says, “you won’t need to bother about that. I’ve already fixed that up already. I have gave him a contract for five thousand.”

I ast her did she mean five thousand for five years, and she says: “No, I meant five thousand for this year.”

Then I says: “That’s as much as I’m gettin’, and this here guy ain’t even made good yet.”

“He’ll make good all right,” she says. “You can tell that from just lookin’ at him, and he comes off’n a good fam’ly.”

Well, we goes to New York, and I was waitin’ round the lobby o’ the hotel for the baggage to come in, when Kelly, the secretary, calls me over to the desk. He pointed out a name on the hotel book and ast me who was it, because the guy was registered as belongin’ to us. “William Baker Junior, Boston Baseball Nine,” was what it says. Do you get that? “Boston Baseball Nine.” Before I ever seen him, I knowed just what he was goin’ to look like, and when I seen him, he looked just like I knowed he was goin’ to. But he was a big bird⁠—so big he couldn’t get no clo’es big enough. He looked like as if he was goin’ to bust right through ’em. His hair was plastered back off’n his forehead, and his shirt and tie would’ve made a rainbow jealous.

He come up to me and says: “Is this the head coach?”

I says: “Yes, whatever that is, I’m it.”

“What time does the game start?” he says.

“Three thirty,” I says, “but we get out there about a quarter after two.”

Then he ast me couldn’t they start it some other time because he had a engagement. I says I would excuse him, and he says: “Thanks.” Then I says: “I’ll excuse you all the time if you say the word.” But he says no, that wouldn’t be right, because he felt like as if he should ought to do some work oncet in a while to earn his pay. Then he says he was pleased to of met me and walked away.

I guess he must of kept his date at a soda fountain or wherever it was he had a date at, because he didn’t show up out to the park and I never seen no more of him till the next mornin’. Then he come to see me while I was writin’ a letter and ast me could he have six passes to the game. I says: “You’d better take ten,” and I writes out a pass for ten on one o’ the hotel letterheads, and I signs Otto Hess’ name to it. He says “Thanks,” and walked away. If I’d of signed President Bryan’s name, he’d of thanked me just the same. And the pass would of been just as good.

I come out o’ the hotel about one o’clock and starts for the elevated, but the colleger was standin’ on the sidewalk and he hollered at me. He ast me was I goin’ out and I says yes, I thought I would, because I didn’t have no other date. Then he ast me would I ride out with him because he’d ordered a taxi. They wasn’t none o’ my ball players had ever tooken me to the park in a taxi before, but I didn’t have no objection, so I and him piled in, and out we goes together.

When we got through ridin’, I says. “You better let me split with you,” but he says, “They ain’t no splittin’ to be did. It’s in my contract that I use cabs to and from the grounds,” and he tells the driver to charge it to the club. Well, I butts in and says, “Here! You can’t get by with that stuff. If you’re out to give the club a trimmin’, you better pull it when I ain’t round.” Then what does he do but pull his contract out of his pocket and show it to me, and there it was, in black and white, that he was to be gave rides on the club to and from the parks where we played. Can you beat that?

We come into the grounds and I took him in the clubhouse and had Doc give him a unie. He made a holler because they wasn’t no feet in the stockin’s and I told him he was supposed to wear socks besides the stockin’s. So he leaves on the reg’lar socks he’d wore with his street clo’es and they was purple!

I wisht you could of heard the ball players ride him. They pulled some awful raw stuff, and if he hadn’t of been such a boob, he’d of lost his temper and tried to lick somebody. But I don’t b’lieve he never wised up that he was gettin’ kidded. Even when Hub called him “Gertie,” it didn’t seem to make no difference to him.

We goes out to warm up and I notice that he don’t have no cap on. I was goin’ to tell him about it, but the boys says: “No. Let him play bareheaded and give the crowd a treat.” They wasn’t much practicin’ done. The New York bunch come over round our bench so’s they wouldn’t miss nothin’. I give him a ball and a catcher’s glove and told Tyler to throw him a few. George just lobbed one at him and he got it on the meat hand. He raised a holler and tells Tyler he shouldn’t ought to throw so hard. I yells at him to use his mitt, but he says the ball stung his hand right through it, and after tryin’ all the wrong ways they is o’ catchin’ a ball, he quit and set down on the bench. McGraw calls me over and ast was I startin’ a chorus or what. I told him how I happened to get ahold o’ the bird, and then I ast him did he want to make a trade. He says:

“What’ll you take for him?”

I says: “Oh, I’ll give him to you for Matty and a piece o’ money.”

“No,” he says, “I don’t want to cheat you. Take the grandstand and a chew o’ tobacco.”

Well, I sends him up to take his turn in battin’ practice, and he acted like as if the bat was as heavy as one o’ these here steel rails. Hess slops a slow one up to him, and instead o’ swingin’, he ducks out o’ the way and tells me he ain’t used to battin’ at such swift balls. Hess hears him pull that and the next one he throwed was a fast one, just as fast as he could throw it. Mr. Baker turns white as a sheet and drops his bat and walks to the bench.

I stuck him in the outfield in fieldin’ practice, but he looked so rotten that I took him out o’ there for fear o’ gettin’ him killed. I called him in and says:

“You’ve did enough for one day, so go in and change your clo’es and you can watch the game from the stand. Maybe you’ll run acrost that crowd I give you the passes for.”

He was willin’ to quit, all right, and the fun was over fer the day. After the game, I send a long telegram to Williams, the vice president, and tells him what a joke our new player was and that it was throwin’ money away to even pay his board, let alone that Fed’ral League sal’ry he was gettin’. I didn’t get no answer from Williams, but a letter come from the skirt. She give me a call for not sendin’ the telegram to her instead o’ Williams and ast me how could I judge if a man was a ball player when I hadn’t only saw him one day.

Well, I wires to Williams that I was through, because I’d signed to manage a ball club and not to run no burlesque show, but he jumps on a train and comes over to New York to see me. He says they was tryin’ to get her to sell out her stock and that him and the other directors appreciated what I’d did for the club and wanted me to stick.

So I stuck and went along the best I could. I didn’t pay no more attention to “Gertie” except to tell him to beat it to the clubhouse before the games started. He kept on comin’ out to the park, wherever we was playin’, and puttin’ on his unie, without no cap, and settin’ on the bench till the practice was over. Then he’d go in and put on one of his eight or nine different suits o’ clo’es, and go up in the stand and watch the game from there or else go to the matinée or somewheres.

I didn’t hardly ever say nothin’ to him, but I couldn’t make the rest o’ the bunch lay off. They tipped their hats whenever they seen him. While he was settin’ on the bench, they’d take a shot at him with the ball, and oncet or twicet they hit him, but not wheres it hurt him bad. He thought it was a accident when he got hit, but I knowed better. Every oncet in a while, somebody’d happen to step on his feet with their spikes, and then they’d beg his pardon. Some o’ them left their caps off while they was practicin’ and hollered “Ouch!” when they catched the ball. And on the train they’d get together and give college yells. He didn’t never get sore, and I don’t s’pose I would of neither if I’d been gettin’ five thousand for changin’ my clo’es a couple o’ times a day.

They tried to get him in the poker game, but they wasn’t nothin’ doin’. He says he liked to play bridge w’ist but that was all the cards he knowed. When we was on trains, he spent the time lookin’ at the scenery or readin’ magazines.

I remember one night when we was goin’ to Philly and he was settin’ acrost the aisle from I and Hub. He was readin’, and pretty soon he looks up from off of his magazine and says:

“You guys should ought to read this here story in here. It’s a baseball story and it’s about two teams bein’ tied for the pennant on the last day o’ the season, and one o’ the teams had a star pitcher that was sure to win the decidin’ game if nothin’ didn’t happen to him, so they stuck him in to pitch but in the first innin’ he strained his arm so it hurt him every ball he throwed but he didn’t say nothin’ about it, but kept on pitchin’ and win his game and the pennant, though he was sufferin’ terrible pain all the while. I call that nerve!”

“Nerve!” says Hub. “Say, that wasn’t nothin’ to what I seen come off in the Southern League the last year I was down there. The Nashville club that I was with and the New Orleans club was tied for first place, and we had to play a extra game to settle it. We had a first sacker named Smith that was the greatest I ever see. Up to the first of August he was battin’ .600 and it got so’s the pitchers wouldn’t give him nothin’ more to hit but walked him every time he come up. He offered to bat with one hand if they’d pitch strikes to him, but they wouldn’t take a chancet, and finally the umps’d just give him his base every time he come up without waitin’ for the four balls to be throwed.

“Well, it come time for this final game and we knowed we had it won if Smith was all right. The New Orleans club knowed it too, and they was out to get him. So when he got on in the first innin’ on a base on balls, their first baseman deliberately stepped on his foot and spiked him somethin’ awful. He couldn’t walk on that foot no more, but he wouldn’t quit, and after he’d drawed one of his bases on balls, every so often, he stole all the rest o’ the bases hoppin’ on his good foot.

“It come along the twenty-first innin’ and the score was six to six. He’d scored every one of our six runs by walkin’ to first and then hoppin’ the rest o’ the way. Well, he walked in the twenty-first and starts hoppin’ to second. The catcher knowed they was no use to throw to second or to third neither, because Smith was so fast, even on one foot, that he was bound to beat it. So the catcher just kept a hold o’ the ball, knowin’ Smith wouldn’t never stop till he got clear home. Along come Smith, hoppin’ for the plate, and the catcher run out to meet him, but he hopped clean over the catcher’s head and scored the run that beat ’em and won us the pennant. They was about sixty thousand people out there, and they tried to carry Smith off o’ the field on their shoulders, but he hopped into the clubhouse before they could catch him. And when he took off his shoe, two toes dropped out!”

“My!” says the colleger, with his mouth wide open. “I should say that was nerve. And didn’t this here Smith never get into the big league?”

“No,” says Hub. “He got blood-poisonin’ in that foot and they had to cut his whole leg off, and the National Commission’s got a rule that you can’t play in neither big league unless you got two legs.”

After that, Baker and Hub hung round together all the time. He fell for everything Hub told him, no matter how raw. He was givin’ Hub a good time, and it’d ’ve been all right if we could of stayed on the road all the while, but I knowed when we got home, the doll’d ast me why wasn’t I playin’ him and then the trouble’d start.

Sure enough, when we come in off o’ the trip, she called me to the office and put it up to me.

“Well,” I says, “I don’t think he’s got enough experience yet. You just let me handle him and keep him on the bench awhile, and maybe he’ll develop into a pretty fair ball player.”

I suppose I should ought not to of gave her no encouragement about him, but I was figurin’ all the time that she’d be boughten out o’ the club pretty soon, and then I could can him. At that, I didn’t have no objections to keepin’ him except that I knowed he was cheatin’ the club out of about two hundred bucks every first and fifteenth. If I had to let him go, the gang’d of missed him, especially Hub.

I run into Williams one day and ast him when was the skirt goin’ to sell out, and he says they’d tried hard to get her stock away from her, but she’d made up her mind to stick it out till the end o’ the season, but that Williams and the other directors was thinkin’ about takin’ it up with the rest o’ the league and tryin’ to force her out, but she’d gave ’em her promise that she’d sell in the fall if they still thought she should ought to. So they was nothin’ for me to do but make as good a showin’ as I could and figure on next year.

It was after the mornin’ game on the Fourth o’ July that she horned in again. She tells me that her brother and bunch of his friends from Yale college is comin’ to the afternoon game, and they want to see their pal perform. I says I’d let him practice and they could watch him if they come out early enough, but she says, no, that wouldn’t do: some o’ them boys was sayin’ that they didn’t b’lieve he could play ball, and she wanted to show ’em that he could.

Well, I thought awhile, and then I made up my mind that if he had to be gave some position, he might as well have mine and I could take a rest. So I tells the umps about the change and then I goes back to the bench and sits in a corner where they wasn’t nobody could see me.

I wisht you could of been there. The papers had a lot o’ stuff about it, but they didn’t tell more’n half. Hub was pitchin’ and we was playin’ Philly. He got the first two of ’em out, and then Cravath hits one down to the colleger on a perfect hop. I was lookin’ for him to throw it wild after he got it, but Pat Moran was coachin’ at first base, and he hollers to him to throw it to second. So what does he do but just like Pat tells him to, and naturally Maranville wasn’t there to cover because they wasn’t no play. So the ball goes out in the outfield, and Cravath got clear round to third base. Then Magee busts one, and they got a run. I thought Hub’d be sore, but he wasn’t. When he come in to the bench, he was laughin’ his head off, and he says:

“Don’t never take me out o’ this game. This is one battle I want to see all the way through.”

Well, Devore leads off for us, and he walks. The colleger’s up next, and I tells him to bunt. The first two Rixey throwed him was a mile outside, but he bunts at ’em just the same. Then Rixey curves one, and he tries to duck, but he can’t get out o’ the way. The ball hit him in the sleeve or somewheres, and Rigler tells him to take his base, but he wouldn’t move.

“What’s the matter?” says Rig. “Why don’t you take your base? Are you hurt?”

“No,” says the colleger, “but the manager says I was to bunt.”

Well, we had to drive him to first base, and then he steals second, or tries to, with Devore standin’ right there. Devore don’t move off’n the bag, so they tagged “Gertie” out. When he comes in, I ast him what was he tryin’ to pull off. He says Luderus had told him to steal. Then I says:

“Don’t never pay no attention to what them Philly guys tells you. If I want you to steal a base, I’ll send you a night letter.”

We didn’t score, and nobody hit nothin’ at him in their half o’ the second, though they was all tryin’ to. Hub was tryin’ to let ’em, too.

The third innin’ was a bear. Dooin hits one at him, and he jumps out o’ the way. Rixey struck out, and then Dooin starts to steal. I’d told Maranville to take all the pegs, but he thought it’d be more fun to leave ’em to “Gertrude.” So he hollers to him to cover. Whalin makes a perfect peg, and the colleger surprises everybody by catchin’ it. But when he’d catched it, he steps on the bag instead of tryin’ to tag Red. Then Red says to him:

“I bet I can beat you to third base.”

Red starts runnin’ with the ball right in Baker’s hands, and instead o’ throwin’ it, he holds right on to it and goes after Red. He wasn’t no slouch runner at that, and he made it a clos’t race, but Red beat him. The bugs was a-hollerin’ their heads off, and most o’ the ball players was so sick from laughin’ that they couldn’t do nothin’. Rig’ kept lookin’ over at me to see if I wasn’t goin’ to take the bird out o’ the game, but I didn’t have no stren’th left to shake my head, even.

After the sprintin’ race, they took the ball away from him and throwed it back to Hub. Byrne hits one at Hub, but he jumps out o’ the way so our “star” can get it, and he goes over and sticks his feet in front o’ the ball and it stops right clost to him. Byrne kept on runnin’ past first base and yelled at him to leave the ball lay, so he left it lay and Byrne goes all the way home. After that, when anybody got a hold o’ the ball, they’d throw it to him and he catched one or two the throws, but most o’ them he got out o’ the way of, and even when he catched ’em, he held onto the ball till everybody’d scored. They made twelve runs in that one innin’, and we wouldn’t never of got the side out if it hadn’t only of been for the umpires. They was tired from workin’ the mornin’ game and this one, too, so they pulled a couple o’ raw ones and wound it up.

Rig’ come over to me between innin’s and ast me did I think this was a joke. I told him it wasn’t no fault o’ mine, and explained how it had came off.

“Well,” he says, “I’ve got to catch the midnight train for New York, and we won’t never get through in time if this keeps up.”

“I can’t help it,” I says.

Then he says: “I can,” and he goes back to his position.

The colleger’s turn to bat come in our half, and Rixey rolls one up to him on the ground. Rig’ calls it another strike, tryin’ to get Baker sore, but he don’t never even look round. It’d of been OK with him if they’d called a strike before the ball was throwed. Rixey rolled another one up, and Rig’ calls it another strike. Then before Baker could say a word, and he wasn’t goin’ to say nothin’ neither, Rig’ puts him out of the gam for kickin’. Most o’ the crowd started home when they seen the show was over, but I didn’t blame the umps none⁠—I’d of did the same if I’d of been in their place. We finished up pretty fast after that, because they wasn’t no chancet for us to ever come near catchin’ up.

After I dressed. I forgot what I was doin’ and walked right out o’ the clubhouse without givin’ the doll a chancet to make a getaway. There she was, layin’ for me.

“What did you take him out o’ the game for?” she says.

“I didn’t take him out o’ no game,” I says. “The umps didn’t like his language.”

Then she ast me what was the matter with his language, and I says I didn’t think the umps could understand it right.

“Well,” she says, “if a umpire can’t understand plain English, he should not ought to be no umpire, and I will write to the president o’ the league and have both o’ these here men discharged.” Then she says: “Mr. Baker was doin’ splendid and would of did still better if he had of been left in longer. He didn’t catch all them balls that was throwed to him, but that’s because he ain’t had no practice.” Then she says: “I’m goin’ out of town tonight, but I want you to keep on lettin’ Mr. Baker play every day, and I’ll watch the papers, and if I see where he ain’t playin’, you’ll hear from me.”

Well, I couldn’t see no joke in it when I got home that night. The ball players was wise and knowed it wasn’t my fault. But I was a-scared that the bugs and these here reporters would get after me if I let the boob play every day. And I was a little bit proud o’ the work we’d did and didn’t want to have it all wasted. I figured it all out, the way I was goin’ to get rid of him. I was goin’ to have one o’ the pitchers hit him with the ball in battin’ practice⁠—not hard enough to kill him, but just so’s it would scare him out of baseball. I thought he couldn’t stand the gaff and would quit in a minute.

I gets out there early the next mornin’ for practice and frames it up with Young, a big busher we had that was fast as a streak and hog wild. I sends him out to pitch to us and then tells the colleger to go up there and swing till he learned how to bat. It was prob’ly a dirty trick, but I couldn’t think o’ no other way.

Well, I pulled a boner when I says anything to this here Young. What I should ought to of did was say nothin’, but just stick him in there to pitch natural, and then he’d of hit the bird by accident. But when he was tryin’ to hit him, he couldn’t even come clost. He was tryin’ to be wild, and he pitched more strikes than he ever done before in his life. Gertrude didn’t hit nothin’, and nothin’ hit him. So fin’lly I give up and sent Young to the clubhouse and started the reg’lar practice.

Fallin’ down on that made me meaner’n ever, and I doped out something else. I tells the colleger he stood too far from the plate when he swung at a ball. I says: “When you go up to bat in the game, keep one foot on the plate.” figurin’ that the guy that pitched for Philly would try to drive him away and either wound him or scare him to death.

Alexander worked for them, and Baker stood right on top o’ the plate. Dooin called the umps’ attention, and the umps warned him, but he wouldn’t move. Fin’lly Alexander shot one up there and he didn’t duck in time. It catched him in front o’ the ear, and he dropped like as if he was shot. I bet I was the most scared guy in the world. For a minute I felt like a murderer, and I wasn’t never so glad in my life as when I seen him get up. He staggered round a little, and I had ’em bring him over to the bench. I stuck myself in to run for him, and some o’ the boys took him in the clubhouse and got him fixed up. He wasn’t hurt bad, though he got a mean lookin’ bump.

We was startin’ West again that night and I didn’t never expect him to show up for no trip. But there he was, down to the train, with his wagonload o’ scenery.

“Well,” I says, “you got your nerve.”

“Yes,” he says, “I’m goin’ to show Hub that they’s more’n one game ball player in the world.”

He was still thinkin’ about that one-legged guy in the Southern League.

We opened up in Pittsburgh, and I kept him on the bench. I knewed Mrs. Hayes would wire and ask me why wasn’t he playin’, and when she did, I wrote to her sayin’ he was hurt by that there blow on the head. But that alibi wouldn’t get by very long, and I figured I’d have to frame somethin’ new.

The first night in St. Louis, I thought up somethin’ and got Doc, the trainer, to help me pull it. I buys two tickets to a show and gives ’em to Doc with instructions to ask the colleger to go along. After the show, they was to go to Tony’s for lunch. He was to order two beers, and then I was to drop in and catch Baker with a big stein in front of him. Then I was to swell up and suspend him for drinkin’. Doc done his best, but the bird says beer made him sick and he wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with it. So when I come in, he was eatin’ some kind o’ fancy sandwich and lappin’ up a lemonade or somethin’.

He ast me the next afternoon why didn’t I let him play, and I says:

“You ain’t no ball player and you wouldn’t be no ball player if you kept at it a thousand years. You should ought to be trimmin’ hats.”

“Mrs. Hayes thinks I’m all OK,” he says.

“Yes,” I says, “and you could start one o’ these here Carnegie li-berries with what she don’t know about baseball.” I says: “Why don’t you quit?”

Then he says: “I can’t quit because I can’t afford to lose this here sal’ry.”

I says: “What do you mean, you can’t afford? You had plenty o’ clo’es when you joined us,” I says, “and you must of had money o’ your own or you couldn’t of boughten them clo’es.”

Then he says his old man give him a allowance of a hundred a month and he spent all o’ that on his clo’es, and that the old man had told him he would double this here allowance if the boy showed he could earn five thousand bucks a year when he got out o’ college, and the old man didn’t care how he earned it. So he’d told Mrs. Hayes the whole story and she’d tooken pity on him and give him the job. I ast him wasn’t they no other way he could “earn” the money, and he says he s’posed they was lots o’ ways, only this here way was easiest.

I says: “Yes, but you ain’t earnin’ nothin’ here. You might just as well stick fellas up on the street as draw a sal’ry as a ball player. You’re stealin’ it either way.”

He just laughed, and then I says:

“Don’t your old man care if you mix up with us tough guys?”

“No,” he says, “the old man don’t care, but the old lady does. I told her you was a nice, polite bunch o’ fellas and she fell for it, or else she’d of made me cut this out and come home.”

The hunch come to me all of a sudden, and I says:

“What’s your old lady’s name and where does she live at?”

He told me, and I couldn’t hardly wait till I got back to the hotel.

I don’t know now just what I wrote, but it was some letter. I told her we was a bunch o’ stews and that when we wasn’t lushin’ beer or playin’ poker, we was going to burlesque shows. I says her son was pickin’ up a awful bunch o’ language and drinkin’ his fool head off. I says he was stuck on a burlesque queen and was spendin’ all his dough on her. And I wound it up by sayin’ that Dixon, the manager, had killed his wife and they wasn’t no tellin’ when he’d cut loose and kill somebody else. I didn’t sign no name, but just put “From a Friend in Need” down at the bottom.

It was in your town that he heard from her, and he showed me the letter. She says he was to come home at oncet and that she’d made the old man promise to come through with a extra allowance without makin’ him do no work for it. But if he didn’t cut out the ball playin’ and beat it for home, he wouldn’t never get another nickel out o’ none o’ them. She hadn’t gave no reason for writin’ this way, and he was up in the air. I told him we was sorry to lose him, but maybe it was best for him to quit playin’ ball, even if he hadn’t never started. He left us the second night in Chi. Hub was good and sore at me. He says I’d spoiled the season for him.

I felt so good about gettin’ him off’n my hands that I went out there and played like Cobb or somebody the rest o’ the trip. Maybe you fellas remember how I hit ag’in’ you them last two days. I done even better’n that in Cincinnati and New York. It was the best trip we’d made in a good many years, and the bugs at home went crazy over us. They was ten thousand out to the first game of our serious at home with St. Louis⁠—on a Thursday, at that.

O’ course I knowed they’d be a argument with the skirt. Our winnin’ streak wouldn’t make her forget to ask me what had became o’ Baker. When she ast me, I sprung the stuff about him gettin’ a letter from his mother, but I didn’t tell her nothin’ about the letter I’d wrote. She didn’t have nothin’, but she looked pretty sore and forgot all about givin’ me the glad hand for what we’d did in the West.

We done pretty well at home ag’in’ St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Then you fellas come along and I guess I don’t need to tell you that we was goin’ good. I was beginnin’ to think we maybe might keep it up and throw a scare into some o’ you birds.

She didn’t never come out to yesterday’s game, but I didn’t suspect nothin’ wrong till Kelly, the secretary, come into the clubhouse after me. He tells me that she wants to see me down to the downtown office.

“All right,” I says. “I’ll beat it down there right after the game.”

“No,” says Kelly, “she wants you right now.”

So I took my unie off and beat it down there in a taxi. The girl in the front office told me to go right on in, and in I went. There was the dame, settin’ at the desk where poor old Hayes used to set. And they was two big coppers with her. Without sayin’ “How d’ya do” or nothin’, she opens right up on me and says:

“These here officers is here to protect me. If you start somethin’, you’ll get nothin’ but the worst of it.” Then she pulls a letter out o’ the desk and says: “This here letter is from Mr. Baker’s mother, and in it she tells me why she made her boy come home. Somebody has tooken the trouble to tell her some fac’s about this here ball club⁠—my ball club that I was proud of! But I ain’t proud of it no more. I ain’t proud o’ no gang o’ hoodlums that don’t do, nothin’ but gamble and drink and run round with actresses and lead young men astray.”

“Is that all?” I says.

“No,” she hollers, “that ain’t all. Mr. Dixon, you killed your wife!”

“That’s a whole lot o’ bunk,” I says. “I didn’t never have no wife, so how could I kill my wife when I didn’t never have none?”

“Don’t lie to me!” she says. “Even if you didn’t never have no wife, you killed somebody, maybe a innocent girl that was wronged.”

“Cut the comedy,” I says. “They’s nothin’ to that stuff. Somebody’s went and gave the old lady a bum steer.”

“What for?” she ast.

“Prob’ly,” I says, “because somebody was tired o’ having that boob on the ball club and figured that was the best way to get rid of him.”

“We won’t discuss it no fu’ther,” she says. “I called you up to tell you you ain’t managin’ the club no longer. You can stay here under the terms o’ your contract and play ball if you want to, but maybe you wouldn’t want to work for the new manager.”

“Who is it?” I says.

“That’s none o’ your business,” she says. “I will tell you when the proper time comes.”

Then I says: “Is the seamstress comin’ back?”

“The who?” she hollers.

“That there colleger,” I says. “If I was you, I’d get him back, because you and him is certainly a grand combination. It’s hard to tell which one o’ you knows the most about baseball, you or that bird. Even if you couldn’t use him as no ball player, you could chop up his head and build a new grandstand.”

“He was smart enough to go through Yale college,” she says.

“No.” says I. “He didn’t never go through no Yale college. If they was any college that he went through, it was this here Wellesley college.”

Then I turns and beats it for the door.

Well, sir, they ain’t nothin’ more to tell except one thing. When I come out o’ the door into the outside office, I bumped right square into “Gertie.” He was smilin’ like a big kid, and he says: “Hello, there!” Well, I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but I give him a good kick in the shin, and I stepped all over his patent-leather shoes. Then I went on about my business.

I wired and they wasn’t nothin’ to it. He told me to come on and join ’em in Pittsburgh, and I just had time to get my stuff together and catch this train.

I guess she won’t try and get no injunction out agin’ me. But I wisht she would. I’d like to tell my story to a judge, provided the judge wasn’t no woman.

You know who’s goin’ to manage that club, don’t you? And you know who’s goin’ to be president of it. Well, sir, I’ll bet you anything you want to bet that they won’t even finish in Mass’chusetts.

Phil and His 4d

Tour No. 2

Alibi Ike

Harmony

Even a baseball writer must sometimes work. Regretfully I yielded my seat in the P.G., walked past the section where Art Graham, Bill Cole, Lefty Parks and young Waldron were giving expert tonsorial treatment to “Sweet Adeline,” and flopped down beside Ryan, the manager.

“Well, Cap,” I said, “we’re due in Springfield in a little over an hour and I haven’t written a line.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” said Ryan.

“I want you to start me,” I said.

“Lord!” said Ryan. “You oughtn’t to have any trouble grinding out stuff these days, with the club in first place and young Waldron gone crazy. He’s worth a story any day.”

“That’s the trouble,” said I. “He’s been worked so much that there’s nothing more to say about him. Everybody in the country knows that he’s hitting .420, that he’s made nine home runs, twelve triples and twenty-some doubles, that he’s stolen twenty-five bases, and that he can play the piano and sing like Carus’. They’ve run his picture oftener than Billy Sunday and Mary Pickford put together. Of course, you might come through with how you got him.”

“Oh, that’s the mystery,” said Ryan.

“So I’ve heard you say,” I retorted. “But it wouldn’t be a mystery if you’d let me print it.”

“Well,” said Ryan, “if you’re really hard up I suppose I might as well come through. Only there’s really no mystery at all about it; it’s just what I consider the most remarkable piece of scouting ever done. I’ve been making a mystery of it just to have a little fun with Dick Hodges. You know he’s got the Jackson club and he’s still so sore about my stealing Waldron he’ll hardly speak to me.

“I’ll give you the dope if you want it, though it’s a boost for Art Graham, not me. There’s lots of people think the reason I’ve kept the thing a secret is because I’m modest.

“They give me credit for having found Waldron myself. But Graham is the bird that deserves the credit and I’ll admit that he almost had to get down on his knees to make me take his tip. Yes, sir, Art Graham was the scout, and now he’s sitting on the bench and the boy he recommended has got his place.”

“That sounds pretty good,” I said. “And how did Graham get wise?”

“I’m going to tell you. You’re in a hurry; so I’ll make it snappy.

“You weren’t with us last fall, were you? Well, we had a day off in Detroit, along late in the season. Graham’s got relatives in Jackson; so he asked me if he could spend the day there. I told him he could and asked him to keep his eyes peeled for good young pitchers, if he happened to go to the ball game. So he went to Jackson and the next morning he came back all excited. I asked him if he’d found me a pitcher and he said he hadn’t, but he’d seen the best natural hitter he’d ever looked at⁠—a kid named Waldron.

“ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’re the last one that ought to be recommending outfielders. If there’s one good enough to hold a regular job, it might be your job he’d get.’

“But Art said that didn’t make any difference to him⁠—he was looking out for the good of the club. Well, I didn’t see my way clear to asking the old man to dig up good money for an outfielder nobody’d ever heard of, when we were pretty well stocked with them, so I tried to stall Art; but he kept after me and kept after me till I agreed to stick in a draft for the kid just to keep Art quiet. So the draft went in and we got him. Then, as you know, Hodges tried to get him back, and that made me suspicious enough to hold on to him. Hodges finally came over to see me and wanted to know who’d tipped me to Waldron. That’s where the mystery stuff started, because I saw that Hodges was all heated up and wanted to kid him along. So I told him we had some mighty good scouts working for us, and he said he knew our regular scouts and they couldn’t tell a ballplayer from a torn ligament. Then he offered me fifty bucks if I’d tell him the truth and I just laughed at him. I said: ‘A fella happened to be in Jackson one day and saw him work. But I won’t tell you who the fella was, because you’re too anxious to know.’ Then he insisted on knowing what day the scout had been in Jackson. I said I’d tell him that if he’d tell me why he was so blame curious. So he gave me his end of it.

“It seems his brother, up in Ludington, had seen this kid play ball on the lots and had signed him right up for Hodges and taken him to Jackson, and of course, Hodges knew he had a world beater the minute he saw him. But he also knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep him in Jackson, and, naturally he began to figure how he could get the most money for him. It was already August when the boy landed in Jackson; so there wasn’t much chance of getting a big price last season. He decided to teach the kid what he didn’t know about baseball and to keep him under cover till this year. Then everybody would be touting him and there’d be plenty of competition. Hodges could sell to the highest bidder.

“He had Waldron out practising every day, but wouldn’t let him play in a game, and every player on the Jackson club had promised to keep the secret till this year. So Hodges wanted to find out from me which one of his players had broken the promise.

“Then I asked him if he was perfectly sure that Waldron hadn’t played in a game, and he said he had gone in to hit for somebody just once. I asked him what date that was and he told me. It was the day Art had been in Jackson. So I said:

“ ‘There’s your mystery solved. That’s the day my scout saw him, and you’ll have to give the scout a little credit for picking a star after seeing him make one base hit.’

“Then Hodges said:

“ ‘That makes it all the more a mystery. Because, in the first place, he batted under a fake name. And, in the second place, he didn’t make a base hit. He popped out.’

“That’s about all there is to it. You can ask Art how he picked the kid out for a star from seeing him pop out once. I’ve asked him myself, and he’s told me that he liked the way Waldron swung. Personally, I believe one of those Jackson boys got too gabby. But Art swears not.”

“That is a story,” I said gratefully. “An old outfielder who must know he’s slipping recommends a busher after seeing him pop out once. And the busher jumps right in and gets his job.”

I looked down the aisle toward the song birds. Art Graham, now a bench warmer, and young Waldron, whom he had touted and who was the cause of his being sent to the bench, were harmonizing at the tops of their strong and not too pleasant voices.

“And probably the strangest part of the story,” I added, “is that Art doesn’t seem to regret it. He and the kid appear to be the best of friends.”

“Anybody who can sing is Art’s friend,” said Ryan.

I left him and went back to my seat to tear off my seven hundred words before we reached Springfield. I considered for a moment the advisability of asking Graham for an explanation of his wonderful bit of scouting, but decided to save that part of it for another day. I was in a hurry and, besides, Waldron was just teaching them a new “wallop,” and it would have been folly for me to interrupt.

“It’s on the word ‘you,’ ” Waldron was saying. “I come down a tone; Lefty goes up a half tone, and Bill comes up two tones. Art just sings it like always. Now try her again,” I heard him direct the song birds. They tried her again, making a worse noise than ever:

I only know I love you;
Love me, and the world (the world) is mine (the world is mine).

“No,” said Waldron. “Lefty missed it. If you fellas knew music, I could teach it to you with the piano when we get to Boston. On the word ‘love,’ in the next to the last line, we hit a regular F chord. Bill’s singing the low F in the bass and Lefty’s hitting middle C in the baritone, and Art’s on high F and I’m up to A. Then, on the word ‘you,’ I come down to G, and Art hits E, and Lefty goes up half a tone to C sharp, and Cole comes up from F to A in the bass. That makes a good wallop. It’s a change from the F chord to the A chord. Now let’s try her again,” Waldron urged.

They tried her again:

I only know I love you⁠—

“No, no!” said young Waldron. “Art and I were all right; but Bill came up too far, and Lefty never moved off that C. Half a tone up, Lefty. Now try her again.”

We were an hour late into Springfield, and it was past six o’clock when we pulled out. I had filed my stuff, and when I came back in the car the concert was over for the time, and Art Graham was sitting alone.

“Where are your pals?” I asked.

“Gone to the diner,” he replied.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“No,” he said, “I’m savin’ up for the steamed clams.” I took the seat beside him.

“I sent in a story about you,” I said.

“Am I fired?” he asked.

“No, nothing like that.”

“Well,” he said, “you must be hard up when you can’t find nothin’ better to write about than a old has-been.”

“Cap just told me who it was that found Waldron,” said I.

“Oh, that,” said Art. “I don’t see no story in that.”

“I thought it was quite a stunt,” I said. “It isn’t everybody that can pick out a second Cobb by just seeing him hit a fly ball.”

Graham smiled.

“No,” he replied, “they’s few as smart as that.”

“If you ever get through playing ball,” I went on, “you oughtn’t to have any trouble landing a job. Good scouts don’t grow on trees.”

“It looks like I’m pretty near through now,” said Art, still smiling. “But you won’t never catch me scoutin’ for nobody. It’s too lonesome a job.”

I had passed up lunch to retain my seat in the card game; so I was hungry. Moreover, it was evident that Graham was not going to wax garrulous on the subject of his scouting ability. I left him and sought the diner. I found a vacant chair opposite Bill Cole.

“Try the minced ham,” he advised, “but lay off’n the sparrow-grass. It’s tougher’n a doubleheader in St. Louis.”

“We’re over an hour late,” I said.

“You’ll have to do a hurry-up on your story, won’t you?” asked Bill. “Or did you write it already?”

“All written and on the way.”

“Well, what did you tell ’em?” he inquired. “Did you tell ’em we had a pleasant trip, and Lenke lost his shirt in the poker game, and I’m goin’ to pitch tomorrow, and the Boston club’s heard about it and hope it’ll rain?”

“No,” I said. “I gave them a regular story tonight⁠—about how Graham picked Waldron.”

“Who give it to you?”

“Ryan,” I told him.

“Then you didn’t get the real story,” said Cole, “Ryan himself don’t know the best part of it, and he ain’t goin’ to know it for a w’ile. He’ll maybe find it out after Art’s got the can, but not before. And I hope nothin’ like that’ll happen for twenty years. When it does happen, I want to be sent along with Art, ’cause I and him’s been roomies now since 1911, and I wouldn’t hardly know how to act with him off’n the club. He’s a nut all right on the singin’ stuff, and if he was gone I might get a chanct to give my voice a rest. But he’s a pretty good guy, even if he is crazy.”

“I’d like to hear the real story,” I said.

“Sure you would,” he answered, “and I’d like to tell it to you. I will tell it to you if you’ll give me your promise not to spill it till Art’s gone. Art told it to I and Lefty in the clubhouse at Cleveland pretty near a month ago, and the three of us and Waldron is the only ones that knows it. I figure I’ve did pretty well to keep it to myself this long, but it seems like I got to tell somebody.”

“You can depend on me,” I assured him, “not to say a word about it till Art’s in Minneapolis, or wherever they’re going to send him.”

“I guess I can trust you,” said Cole. “But if you cross me, I’ll shoot my fast one up there in the press coop some day and knock your teeth loose.”

“Shoot,” said I.

“Well,” said Cole, “I s’pose Ryan told you that Art fell for the kid after just seein’ him pop out.”

“Yes, and Ryan said he considered it a remarkable piece of scouting.”

“It was all o’ that. It’d of been remarkable enough if Art’d saw the bird pop out and then recommended him. But he didn’t even see him pop out.”

“What are you giving me?”

“The fac’s,” said Bill Cole. “Art not only didn’t see him pop out, but he didn’t even see him with a ball suit on. He wasn’t never inside the Jackson ball park in his life.”

“Waldron?”

“No. Art I’m talkin’ about.”

“Then somebody tipped him off,” I said, quickly.

“No, sir. Nobody tipped him off, neither. He went to Jackson and spent the ev’nin’ at his uncle’s house, and Waldron was there. Him and Art was together the whole ev’nin’. But Art didn’t even ask him if he could slide feet first. And then he come back to Detroit and got Ryan to draft him. But to give you the whole story, I’ll have to go back a ways. We ain’t nowheres near Worcester yet, so they’s no hurry, except that Art’ll prob’ly be sendin’ for me pretty quick to come in and learn Waldron’s lost chord.

“You wasn’t with this club when we had Mike McCann. But you must of heard of him; outside his pitchin’, I mean. He was on the stage a couple o’ winters, and he had the swellest tenor voice I ever heard. I never seen no grand opera, but I’ll bet this here C’ruso or McCormack or Gadski or none o’ them had nothin’ on him for a pure tenor. Every note as clear as a bell. You couldn’t hardly keep your eyes dry when he’d tear off ‘Silver Threads’ or ‘The River Shannon.’

“Well, when Art was still with the Washin’ton club yet, I and Lefty and Mike used to pal round together and onct or twict we’d hit up some harmony. I couldn’t support a fam’ly o’ Mormons with my voice, but it was better in them days than it is now. I used to carry the lead, and Lefty’d hit the baritone and Mike the tenor. We didn’t have no bass. But most o’ the time we let Mike do the singin’ alone, ’cause he had us outclassed, and the other boys kept tellin’ us to shut up and give ’em a treat. First it’d be ‘Silver Threads’ and then ‘Jerusalem’ and then ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ and this and that, whatever the boys ast him for. Jake Martin used to say he couldn’t help a short pair if Mike wasn’t singin’.

“Finally Ryan pulled off the trade with Griffith, and Graham come on our club. Then they wasn’t no more solo work. They made a bass out o’ me, and Art sung the lead, and Mike and Lefty took care o’ the tenor and baritone. Art didn’t care what the other boys wanted to hear. They could holler their heads off for Mike to sing a solo, but no sooner’d Mike start singin’ than Art’d chime in with him and pretty soon we’d all four be goin’ it. Art’s a nut on singin’, but he don’t care nothin’ about list’nin’, not even to a canary. He’d rather harmonize than hit one past the outfielders with two on.

“At first we done all our serenadin’ on the train. Art’d get us out o’ bed early so’s we could be through breakfast and back in the car in time to tear off a few before we got to wherever we was goin’.

“It got so’s Art wouldn’t leave us alone in the different towns we played at. We couldn’t go to no show or nothin’. We had to stick in the hotel and sing, up in our room or Mike’s. And then he went so nuts over it that he got Mike to come and room in the same house with him at home, and I and Lefty was supposed to help keep the neighbors awake every night. O’ course we had mornin’ practice w’ile we was home, and Art used to have us come to the park early and get in a little harmony before we went on the field. But Ryan finally nailed that. He says that when he ordered mornin’ practice he meant baseball and not no minstrel show.

“Then Lefty, who wasn’t married, goes and gets himself a girl. I met her a couple o’ times, and she looked all right. Lefty might of married her if Art’d of left him alone. But nothin’ doin’. We was home all through June onct, and instead o’ comin’ round nights to sing with us, Lefty’d take this here doll to one o’ the parks or somewheres. Well, sir, Art was pretty near wild. He scouted round till he’d found out why Lefty’d quit us and then he tried pretty near everybody else on the club to see if they wasn’t someone who could hit the baritone. They wasn’t nobody. So the next time we went on the road, Art give Lefty a earful about what a sucker a man was to get married, and looks wasn’t everything and the girl was prob’ly after Lefty’s money and he wasn’t bein’ a good fella to break up the quartet and spoil our good times, and so on, and kept pesterin’ and teasin’ Lefty till he give the girl up. I’d of saw Art in the Texas League before I’d of shook a girl to please him, but you know these left-handers.

“Art had it all framed that we was goin’ on the stage, the four of us, and he seen a vaudeville man in New York and got us booked for eight hundred a week⁠—I don’t know if it was one week or two. But he sprung it on me in September and says we could get solid bookin’ from October to March; so I ast him what he thought my Missus would say when I told her I couldn’t get enough o’ bein’ away from home from March to October, so I was figurin’ on travelin’ the vaudeville circuit the other four or five months and makin’ it unanimous? Art says I was tied to a woman’s apron and all that stuff, but I give him the cold stare and he had to pass up that dandy little scheme.

“At that, I guess we could of got by on the stage all right. Mike was better than this here Waldron and I hadn’t wore my voice out yet on the coachin’ line, tellin’ the boys to touch all the bases.

“They was about five or six songs that we could kill. ‘Adeline’ was our star piece. Remember where it comes in, ‘Your fair face beams’? Mike used to go away up on ‘fair.’ Then they was ‘The Old Millstream’ and ‘Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.’ I done some fancy work in that one. Then they was ‘Down in Jungle Town’ that we had pretty good. And then they was one that maybe you never heard. I don’t know the name of it. It run somethin’ like this.”

Bill sottoed his voice so that I alone could hear the beautiful refrain:

“Years, years, I’ve waited years
Only to see you, just to call you ‘dear.’
Come, come, I love but thee,
Come to your sweetheart’s arms; come back to me.”

“That one had a lot o’ wallops in it, and we didn’t overlook none o’ them. The boys used to make us sing it six or seven times a night. But ‘Down in the Cornfield’ was Art’s favor-ight. They was a part in that where I sung the lead down low and the other three done a banjo stunt. Then they was ‘Castle on the Nile’ and ‘Come Back to Erin’ and a whole lot more.

“Well, the four of us wasn’t hardly ever separated for three years. We was practisin’ all the w’ile like as if we was goin’ to play the big time, and we never made a nickel off’n it. The only audience we had was the ball players or the people travelin’ on the same trains or stoppin’ at the same hotels, and they got it all for nothin’. But we had a good time, ’specially Art.

“You know what a pitcher Mike was. He could go in there stone cold and stick ten out o’ twelve over that old plate with somethin’ on ’em. And he was the willin’est guy in the world. He pitched his own game every third or fourth day, and between them games he was warmin’ up all the time to go in for somebody else. In 1911, when we was up in the race for aw’ile, he pitched eight games out o’ twenty, along in September, and win seven o’ them, and besides that, he finished up five o’ the twelve he didn’t start. We didn’t win the pennant, and I’ve always figured that them three weeks killed Mike.

“Anyway, he wasn’t worth nothin’ to the club the next year; but they carried him along, hopin’ he’d come back and show somethin’. But he was pretty near through, and he knowed it. I knowed it, too, and so did everybody else on the club, only Graham. Art never got wise till the trainin’ trip two years ago this last spring. Then he come to me one day.

“ ‘Bill,’ he says, ‘I don’t believe Mike’s comin’ back.’

“ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘you’re gettin’s so’s they can’t nobody hide nothin’ from you. Next thing you’ll be findin’ out that Sam Crawford can hit.’

“ ‘Never mind the comical stuff,’ he says. ‘They ain’t no joke about this!’

“ ‘No,’ I says, ‘and I never said they was. They’ll look a long w’ile before they find another pitcher like Mike.’

“ ‘Pitcher my foot!’ says Art. ‘I don’t care if they have to pitch the bat boy. But when Mike goes, where’ll our quartet be?’

“ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘do you get paid every first and fifteenth for singin’ or for crownin’ that old pill?’

“ ‘If you couldn’t talk about money, you’d be deaf and dumb,’ says Art.

“ ‘But you ain’t playin’ ball because it’s fun, are you?’

“ ‘No,’ he says, ‘they ain’t no fun for me in playin’ ball. They’s no fun doin’ nothin’ but harmonizin’, and if Mike goes, I won’t even have that.’

“ ‘I and you and Lefty can harmonize,’ I says.

“ ‘It’d be swell stuff harmonizin’ without no tenor,’ says Art. ‘It’d be like swingin’ without no bat.’

“Well, he ast me did I think the club’d carry Mike through another season, and I told him they’d already carried him a year without him bein’ no good to them, and I figured if he didn’t show somethin’ his first time out, they’d ask for waivers. Art kept broodin’ and broodin’ about it till they wasn’t hardly no livin’ with him. If he ast me onct he ast me a thousand times if I didn’t think they might maybe hold onto Mike another season on account of all he’d did for ’em. I kept tellin’ him I didn’t think so; but that didn’t satisfy him and he finally went to Ryan and ast him point blank.

“ ‘Are you goin’ to keep McCann?’ Art ast him.

“ ‘If he’s goin’ to do us any good, I am,’ says Ryan. ‘If he ain’t, he’ll have to look for another job.’

“After that, all through the trainin’ trip, he was right on Mike’s heels.

“ ‘How does the old souper feel?’ he’d ask him.

“ ‘Great!’ Mike’d say.

“Then Art’d watch him warm up, to see if he had anything on the ball.

“ ‘He’s comin’ fine,’ he’d tell me. ‘His curve broke today just as good as I ever seen it.’

“But that didn’t fool me, or it didn’t fool Mike neither. He could throw about four hooks and then he was through. And he could of hit you in the head with his fast one and you’d of thought you had a rash.

“One night, just before the season opened up, we was singin’ on the train, and when we got through, Mike says:

“ ‘Well, boys, you better be lookin’ for another C’ruso.’

“ ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ says Art.

“ ‘I’m talkin’ about myself,’ says Mike. ‘I’ll be up there in Minneapolis this summer, pitchin’ onct a week and swappin’ stories about the Civil War with Joe Cantillon.’

“ ‘You’re crazy,’ says Art. ‘Your arm’s as good as I ever seen it.’

“ ‘Then,’ says Mike, ‘you must of been playin’ blindfolded all these years. This is just between us, ’cause Ryan’ll find it out for himself; my arm’s rotten, and I can’t do nothin’ to help it.’

“Then Art got sore as a boil.

“ ‘You’re a yellow, quittin’ dog,’ he says. ‘Just because you come round a little slow, you talk about Minneapolis. Why don’t you resign off’n the club?’

“ ‘I might just as well,’ Mike says, and left us.

“You’d of thought that Art would of gave up then, ’cause when a ball player admits he’s slippin’, you can bet your last nickel that he’s through. Most o’ them stalls along and tries to kid themself and everybody else long after they know they’re gone. But Art kept talkin’ like they was still some hope o’ Mike comin’ round, and when Ryan told us one night in St. Louis that he was goin’ to give Mike his chanct, the next day, Art was as nervous as a bride goin’ to get married. I wasn’t nervous. I just felt sorry, ’cause I knowed the old boy was hopeless.

“Ryan had told him he was goin’ to work if the weather suited him. Well, the day was perfect. So Mike went out to the park along about noon and took Jake with him to warm up. Jake told me afterwards that Mike was throwin’, just easy like, from half-past twelve till the rest of us got there. He was tryin’ to heat up the old souper and he couldn’t of ast for a better break in the weather, but they wasn’t enough sunshine in the world to make that old whip crack.

“Well, sir, you’d of thought to see Art that Mike was his son or his brother or somebody and just breakin’ into the league. Art wasn’t in the outfield practisin’ more than two minutes. He come in and stood behind Mike w’ile he was warmin’ up and kept tellin’ how good he looked, but the only guy he was kiddin’ was himself.

“Then the game starts and our club goes in and gets three runs.

“ ‘Pretty soft for you now, Mike,’ says Art, on the bench. ‘They can’t score three off’n you in three years.’

“Say, it’s lucky he ever got the side out in the first innin’. Everybody that come up hit one on the pick, but our infield pulled two o’ the greatest plays I ever seen and they didn’t score. In the second, we got three more, and I thought maybe the old bird was goin’ to be lucky enough to scrape through.

“For four or five innin’s, he got the grandest support that was ever gave a pitcher; but I’ll swear that what he throwed up there didn’t have no more on it than September Morning. Every time Art come to the bench, he says to Mike, ‘Keep it up, old boy. You got more than you ever had.’

“Well, in the seventh, Mike still had ’em shut out, and we was six runs to the good. Then a couple o’ the St. Louis boys hit ’em where they couldn’t nobody reach ’em and they was two on and two out. Then somebody got a hold o’ one and sent it on a line to the left o’ second base. I forgot who it was now; but whoever it was, he was supposed to be a right field hitter, and Art was layin’ over the other way for him. Art started with the crack o’ the bat, and I never seen a man make a better try for a ball. He had it judged perfect; but Cobb or Speaker or none o’ them couldn’t of catched it. Art just managed to touch it by stretchin’ to the limit. It went on to the fence and everybody come in. They didn’t score no more in that innin’.

“Then Art come in from the field and what do you think he tried to pull?

“ ‘I don’t know what was the matter with me on that fly ball,’ he says. ‘I ought to caught it in my pants pocket. But I didn’t get started till it was right on top o’ me.’

“ ‘You misjudged it, didn’t you?’ says Ryan.

“ ‘I certainly did,’ says Art without crackin’.

“ ‘Well,’ says Ryan, ‘I wisht you’d misjudge all o’ them that way. I never seen a better play on a ball.’

“So then Art knowed they wasn’t no more use trying to alibi the old boy.

“Mike had a turn at bat and when he come back, Ryan ast him how he felt.

“ ‘I guess I can get six more o’ them out,’ he says.

“Well, they didn’t score in the eighth, and when the ninth come Ryan sent I and Lefty out to warm up. We throwed a few w’ile our club was battin’; but when it come St. Louis’ last chanct, we was too much interested in the ball game to know if we was throwin’ or bakin’ biscuits.

“The first guy hits a line drive, and somebody jumps a mile in the air and stabs it. The next fella fouled out, and they was only one more to get. And then what do you think come off? Whoever it was hittin’ lifted a fly ball to centre field. Art didn’t have to move out of his tracks. I’ve saw him catch a hundred just like it behind his back. But you know what he was thinkin’. He was sayin’ to himself, ‘If I nail this one, we’re li’ble to keep our tenor singer a w’ile longer.’ And he dropped it.

“Then they was five base hits that sounded like the fourth o’ July, and they come so fast that Ryan didn’t have time to send for I or Lefty. Anyway, I guess he thought he might as well leave Mike in there and take it.

“They wasn’t no singin’ in the clubhouse after that game. I and Lefty always let the others start it. Mike, o’ course, didn’t feel like no jubilee, and Art was so busy tryin’ not to let nobody see him cry that he kept his head clear down in his socks. Finally he beat it for town all alone, and we didn’t see nothin’ of him till after supper. Then he got us together and we all went up to Mike’s room.

“ ‘I want to try this here “Old Girl o’ Mine,” ’ he says.

“ ‘Better sing our old stuff,’ says Mike. ‘This looks like the last time.’

“Then Art choked up and it was ten minutes before he could get goin’. We sung everything we knowed, and it was two o’clock in the mornin’ before Art had enough. Ryan come in after midnight and set a w’ile listenin’, but he didn’t chase us to bed. He knowed better’n any of us that it was a farewell. When I and Art was startin’ for our room, Art turned to Mike and says:

“ ‘Old boy, I’d of gave every nickel I ever owned to of caught that fly ball.’

“ ‘I know you would,’ Mike says, ‘and I know what made you drop it. But don’t worry about it, ’cause it was just a question o’ time, and if I’d of got away with that game, they’d of murdered some o’ the infielders next time I started.’

“Mike was sent home the next day, and we didn’t see him again. He was shipped to Minneapolis before we got back. And the rest o’ the season I might as well of lived in a cemetery w’ile we was on the road. Art was so bad that I thought onct or twict I’d have to change roomies. Onct in a w’ile he’d start hummin’ and then he’d break off short and growl at me. He tried out two or three o’ the other boys on the club to see if he couldn’t find a new tenor singer, but nothin’ doin’. One night he made Lefty try the tenor. Well, Lefty’s voice is bad enough down low. When he gets up about so high, you think you’re in the stockyards.

“And Art had a rotten year in baseball, too. The old boy’s still pretty near as good on a fly ball as anybody in the league; but you ought to saw him before his legs begin to give out. He could cover as much ground as Speaker and he was just as sure. But the year Mike left us, he missed pretty near half as many as he got. He told me one night, he says:

“ ‘Do you know, Bill, I stand out there and pray that nobody’ll hit one to me. Every time I see one comin’ I think o’ that one I dropped for Mike in St. Louis, and then I’m just as li’ble to have it come down on my bean as in my glove.’

“ ‘You’re crazy,’ I says, ‘to let a thing like that make a bum out o’ you.’

“But he kept on droppin’ fly balls till Ryan was talkin’ about settin’ him on the bench where it wouldn’t hurt nothin’ if his nerve give out. But Ryan didn’t have nobody else to play out there, so Art held on.

“He come back the next spring⁠—that’s a year ago⁠—feelin’ more cheerful and like himself than I’d saw him for a long w’ile. And they was a kid named Burton tryin’ out for second base that could sing pretty near as good as Mike. It didn’t take Art more’n a day to find this out, and every mornin’ and night for a few days the four of us would be together, hittin’ her up. But the kid didn’t have no more idea o’ how to play the bag than Charley Chaplin. Art seen in a minute that he couldn’t never beat Cragin out of his job, so what does he do but take him out and try and learn him to play the outfield. He wasn’t no worse there than at second base; he couldn’t of been. But before he’d practised out there three days they was bruises all over his head and shoulders where fly balls had hit him. Well, the kid wasn’t with us long enough to see the first exhibition game, and after he’d went, Art was Old Man Grump again.

“ ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I says to him. ‘You was all smiles the day we reported and now you could easy pass for a undertaker.’

“ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I had a great winter, singin’ all the w’ile. We got a good quartet down home and I never enjoyed myself as much in my life. And I kind o’ had a hunch that I was goin’ to be lucky and find somebody amongst the bushers that could hit up the old tenor.’

“ ‘Your hunch was right,’ I says. ‘That Burton kid was as good a tenor as you’d want.’

“ ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘and my hunch could of played ball just as good as him.’

“Well, sir, if you didn’t never room with a corpse, you don’t know what a whale of a time I had all last season. About the middle of August he was at his worst.

“ ‘Bill,’ he says, ‘I’m goin’ to leave this old baseball flat on its back if somethin’ don’t happen. I can’t stand these here lonesome nights. I ain’t like the rest o’ the boys that can go and set all ev’nin’ at a pitcher show or hang round them Dutch gardens. I got to be singin’ or I am mis’rable.’

“ ‘Go ahead and sing,’ says I. ‘I’ll try and keep the cops back.’

“ ‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t want to sing alone. I want to harmonize and we can’t do that ’cause we ain’t got no tenor.’

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me or not, but sure as we’re settin’ here he went to Ryan one day in Philly and tried to get him to make a trade for Harper.

“ ‘What do I want him for?’ says Ryan.

“ ‘I hear he ain’t satisfied,’ says Art.

“ ‘I ain’t runnin’ no ball players’ benefit association,’ says Ryan, and Art had to give it up. But he didn’t want Harper on the club for no other reason than because he’s a tenor singer!

“And then come that Dee-troit trip, and Art got permission to go to Jackson. He says he intended to drop in at the ball park, but his uncle wanted to borry some money off’n him on a farm, so Art had to drive out and see the farm. Then, that night, this here Waldron was up to call on Art’s cousin⁠—a swell doll, Art tells me. And Waldron set down to the py-ana and begin to sing and play. Then it was all off; they wasn’t no spoonin’ in the parlor that night. Art wouldn’t leave the kid get off’n the py-ana stool long enough to even find out if the girl was a blonde or a brunette.

“O’ course Art knowed the boy was with the Jackson club as soon as they was interduced, ’cause Art’s uncle says somethin’ about the both o’ them bein’ ball players, and so on. But Art swears he never thought o’ recommendin’ him till the kid got up to go home. Then he ast him what position did he play and found out all about him, only o’ course Waldron didn’t tell him how good he was ’cause he didn’t know himself.

“So Art ast him would he like a trial in the big show, and the kid says he would. Then Art says maybe the kid would hear from him, and then Waldron left and Art went to bed, and he says he stayed awake all night plannin’ the thing out and wonderin’ would he have the nerve to pull it off. You see he thought that if Ryan fell for it, Waldron’d join us as soon as his season was over and then Ryan’d see he wasn’t no good; but he’d prob’ly keep him till we was through for the year, and Art could alibi himself some way, say he’d got the wrong name or somethin’. All he wanted, he says, was to have the kid along the last month or six weeks, so’s we could harmonize. A nut? I guess not.

“Well, as you know, Waldron got sick and didn’t report, and when Art seen him on the train this spring he couldn’t hardly believe his eyes. He thought surely the kid would of been canned durin’ the winter without no trial.

“Here’s another hot one. When we went out the first day for practice, Art takes the kid off in a corner and tries to learn him enough baseball so’s he won’t show himself up and get sent away somewheres before we had a little benefit from his singin’. Can you imagine that? Tryin’ to learn this kid baseball, when he was born with a slidin’ pad on.

“You know the rest of it. They wasn’t never no question about Waldron makin’ good. It’s just like everybody says⁠—he’s the best natural ball player that’s broke in since Cobb. They ain’t nothin’ he can’t do. But it is a funny thing that Art’s job should be the one he’d get. I spoke about that to Art when he give me the story.

“ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can’t expect everything to break right. I figure I’m lucky to of picked a guy that’s good enough to hang on. I’m in stronger with Ryan right now, and with the old man, too, than when I was out there playin’ every day. Besides, the bench is a pretty good place to watch the game from. And this club won’t be shy a tenor singer for nine years.’

“ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but they’ll be shy a lead and a baritone and a bass before I and you and Lefty is much older.’

“ ‘What of it?’ he says. ‘We’ll look up old Mike and all go somewheres and live together.’ ”

We were nearing Worcester. Bill Cole and I arose from our table and started back toward our car. In the first vestibule we encountered Buck, the trainer.

“Mr. Graham’s been lookin’ all over for you, Mr. Cole,” he said.

“I’ve been rehearsin’ my part,” said Bill.

We found Art Graham, Lefty, and young Waldron in Art’s seat. The kid was talking.

“Lefty missed it again. If you fellas knew music, I could teach it to you on the piano when we get to Boston. Lefty, on the word ‘love,’ in the next to the last line, you’re on middle C. Then, on the word ‘you,’ you slide up half a tone. That’d ought to be a snap, but you don’t get it. I’m on high A and come down to G and Bill’s on low F and comes up to A. Art just sings the regular two notes, F and E. It’s a change from the F chord to the A chord. It makes a dandy wallop and it ought to be a⁠—”

“Here’s Bill now,” interrupted Lefty, as he caught sight of Cole.

Art Graham treated his roommate to a cold stare.

“Where the h⁠⸺⁠l have you been?” he said angrily.

“Lookin’ for the lost chord,” said Bill.

“Set down here and learn this,” growled Art. “We won’t never get it if we don’t work.”

“Yes, let’s tackle her again,” said Waldron. “Bill comes up two full tones, from F to A. Lefty goes up half a tone, Art sings just like always, and I come down a tone. Now try her again.”

Two years ago it was that Bill Cole told me that story. Two weeks ago Art Graham boarded the evening train on one of the many roads that lead to Minneapolis.

The day Art was let out, I cornered Ryan in the clubhouse after the others had dressed and gone home.

“Did you ever know,” I asked, “that Art recommended Waldron without having seen him in a ball suit?”

“I told you long ago how Art picked Waldron,” he said.

“Yes,” said I, “but you didn’t have the right story.”

So I gave it to him.

“You newspaper fellas,” he said when I had done, “are the biggest suckers in the world. Now I’ve never given you a bad steer in my life. But you don’t believe what I tell you and you go and fall for one of Bill Cole’s hop dreams. Don’t you know that he was the biggest liar in baseball? He’d tell you that Walter Johnson was Jack’s father if he thought he could get away with it. And that bunk he gave you about Waldron. Does it sound reasonable?”

“Just as reasonable,” I replied, “as the stuff about Art’s grabbing him after seeing him pop out.”

“I don’t claim he did,” said Ryan. “That’s what Art told me. One of those Jackson ball players could give you the real truth, only of course he wouldn’t, because if Hodges ever found it out he’d shoot him full of holes. Art Graham’s no fool. He isn’t touting ball players because they can sing tenor or alto or anything else.”

Nevertheless, I believe Bill Cole; else I wouldn’t print the story. And Ryan would believe, too, if he weren’t in such a mood these days that he disagrees with everybody. For in spite of Waldron’s wonderful work, and he is at his best right now, the club hasn’t done nearly as well as when Art and Bill and Lefty were still with us.

There seems to be a lack of harmony.

The Poor Simp

Where Do You Get That Noise?

Oh, You Bonehead!

“What did the Coach say to him?” asked Harris.

“You’ll fall over when I tell you,” Dana replied.

“The fellas hadn’t started takin’ off their suits. They were waitin’ to hear Dickie get his. Some of ’em were cryin’ and I was blubberin’ a bit myself. Dickie sat in front of his locker, white as a sheet. The Coach came in and stood there a minute, lookin’ us over. Everybody in the room expected him to cut loose on Dickie. Dickie himself expected it. And why shouldn’t he?

“Well, the Coach, as I say, just stood there a minute, lookin’ us over. Then he went right up to where Dickie was sittin’, and I thought he was goin’ to punch him. Dickie thought so, too, ’cause I could see him sort o’ cringe; but the Coach smiled at him⁠—yes, sir, smiled. And then he said:

“ ‘Dickie, I want to shake hands with you. You didn’t quite put it over, but you gave ’em a good scare.’

“Well, Dickie broke down then and cried worse than any of us; but the Coach kept right on smilin’.

“ ‘Don’t let it bother you anymore,’ he said. ‘We’ll get ’em next year when we’re not all crippled up.’ Then he turned to the rest of the bunch. ‘Why don’t you get those dirty suits off?’ he said. ‘There’s no use sittin’ there like mourners at a funeral. The beans are spilled, but we gave ’em a mighty good fight. Everybody expected ’em to run all over us, and holdin’ ’em to three points is a credit to you, boys. We can’t help it if they’ve got a good kicker. Without him it would have been 0 to 0.’

“ ‘And if it hadn’t been for me,’ said poor Dickie, ‘we’d have licked ’em 7 to 3.’

“ ‘If it hadn’t been for you,’ said the Coach, ‘they’d have licked us 20 to 0. Hurry up now, boys; get those suits off and quit thinkin’ about it. You can do what you please tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll see you Monday.’ ”

“What do you know about that!” Harris exclaimed.

“It’s got me beat,” replied Dana. “Course, after he got through I didn’t feel like sayin’ what I thought. He went away and left us, and I haven’t seen him since. I stuck in there a while with the boys, but finally it got too painful. You could cut the silence with a knife. So I followed the Coach’s example and left.”

“Do you s’pose Dickie really knew he’d pulled a boner?”

“How could he help knowin’ it? The whole bunch lit into him before we ever left the field. And I could hear some of the crowd hollerin’ ‘Bonehead!’ at him while we were comin’ off. He knew it, all right.”

“If it was me,” said Harris, “I’d buy a cannon and blow out my brains.”

“How could you blow out your brains,” demanded Dana, “if you didn’t have any? If he’d had even half a brain he’d have known better than to pull what he pulled. There was absolutely no excuse on earth, and⁠—”

The gym door opened and the Coach came in.

“Hello, Bert!” he said, and shook Harris’ hand. “How’s my trusty scout? And how did they look to you?”

“Mighty good, Coach!” was the reply. “They’ll give us all we can handle. It’s the best team I’ve looked at in two years.”

“Did you get anything on ’em?” asked the Coach.

“Sure! Enough to write a book. Some of their signals too.”

And Harris drew a notebook from his pocket and handed it to his chief.

“I’ll look it over after a while,” said the Coach. “I want to tell you two boys that we’ve got to go some this week to keep those fellas keyed up. I’m afraid that game Saturday has taken the heart out of ’em. If we’d won that one, Doane would be easy for us. And we could have won it just like that!”

“It was a rotten shame!” said Harris.

“It was a shame,” agreed the Coach. “I s’pose Dana’s told you all about it?”

“He told me enough,” Harris replied. “He told me you let Dickie off mighty easy.”

“I should think you did!” Dana put in. “If I’d been him I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t knocked my block off.”

The Coach smiled.

“Just between us,” he said, “I felt like killin’ him. I b’lieve I would if I could have got hold of him right after he pulled it. Maybe you noticed that I was a little late gettin’ in here afterward. I didn’t come in till I was cooled off. I wanted to be sure to keep myself in hand when I saw him.”

“You certainly kept yourself in hand,” said Dana. “If you’re askin’ me, you were a whole lot too good to him. You’d have given your right eye to win that game, and he went and lost it for you. If he’d dropped a punt or missed a tackle I wouldn’t think anything about it. Anybody’s li’ble to do those things. But⁠—”

“But he lost his head,” the Coach interrupted. “All he had to do was use common sense and we’d have trimmed ’em. He went out of his way to pull a boner and you fellas think he should have been called for it. You wonder why I didn’t cut loose on him. Well, I’m goin’ to tell you a little story and then maybe you’ll understand why Dickie got the glad hand instead of a lot of abuse.”

The Coach pocketed Harris’ notebook and sat down. His two assistants, who had risen at his entrance, resumed their seats on the rubbing table and were ready to listen.

If you fellas followed the dope you’ll remember Joe Draper. He was quarterback two years ago, my last year at Leighton. You must have read about his track work anyway. He ran the 100 and the 220 and the high hurdles, and was first in both dashes in the intercollegiate of 1911 and 1912. He tied the 220 record twice and could do the 100 in even time whenever he wanted to. Leighton finished second in the meet both those years, and if it hadn’t been for him they’d have dropped out of the bottom. He was their whole track team.

He was an Alpha Delt and the Alpha Delt’s were the real cheese at Leighton. He was as smart as a whip and there never was a bit of danger of the faculty keepin’ him out of athletics; in fact he was just about the best student in college and everybody was predictin’ a whale of a career for him. He was a boy a great deal like Dickie. He was popular with everybody, but he never ran round nights or cut up any, and it wasn’t a particle of trouble to keep him in shape.

His only dissipation was the prettiest girl on the campus. Nobody could blame him for pursuin’ her. He seemed to have all his speed on that track, too, ’cause they were engaged before he was through his junior year.

She was from St. Louis and the best-lookin’ girl I ever saw, bar one. Her family were well fixed and the boys had a license to envy Joe. At that, he wasn’t gettin’ any the better of the bargain, ’cause he was a handsome kid and good-natured as they make ’em, besides bein’ so smart that it was a cinch he’d get somewhere.

Joe and the girl were together all the time he wasn’t in the classroom or gym. In the vacation before his senior year he went down to St. Louis to meet her folks and made a big hit. They didn’t think anybody was quite good enough for her, but Joe came as close as any boy they could hope to find. She was a year behind Joe in school, but she was figurin’ on passin’ up her senior year so they could be married as soon as Joe got through.

Joe came from Cedarville, a little burg in Iowa. He’d played football in the high school and he tried out for our Freshmen team in his first year at Leighton. He made the team at quarterback and I was tickled to death to see him there, ’cause I figured I could use him to good advantage the followin’ fall. It didn’t take a stop watch to tell you how fast he was. In the practice against my bunch and the scrubs he got away often and there was no catchin’ him in a clear field. Course I had McGill for quarter at that time and he was only a second-year man; so I was plannin’ to make a halfback out of Joe. But one night the kid broke his arm scrimmagin’ with the scrubs, and the Freshmen had to go along without him the rest of the season.

That winter Joe showed Murphy, our track coach, what he could do in the sprints and hurdles, and the Freshmen bunch cleaned up in every meet they had. He went outdoors in the spring and did even better than Murphy expected. He could run the 100 backward in .10 flat, and he went over the sticks so fast you thought he was flyin’.

Well, I went up to Leighton in June to see how many of the good-lookin’ Freshmen I could count on for that fall. Almost the first fella I ran into was Murphy. I started kiddin’ him about his varsity track team, which had finished sixth in the intercollegiate.

“Wait till next year,” said Murph. “If I don’t land second or better my name’s Goldstein.”

“What’s up your sleeve?” I asked him.

“The most consistent sprinter I ever saw,” said Murph. “I can tell you to a fifth of a second what his time’s goin’ to be before he ever starts runnin’. He can go the 100 in .10 five times a day durin’ the week and as many times as he has to on Saturday. What’s more, the boy’s good enough to beat the world in the 220 and the high sticks.”

“You kept him pretty well under cover in the big meet,” I said.

“He’s a Freshman,” answered Murph.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Joe Draper,” said Murph.

“Oh, I know him,” I said. “He was quarter on the All-Fresh.”

“Yes, till he broke an arm,” said Murph; “but he’s through with football now.”

“What do you mean⁠—through with football?” said I. “You’ll find him playin’ halfback for me this fall. I’ve been countin’ on him all winter.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been countin’ on him,” said Murph; “but I might as well break the news to you. He’s promised me to stick to track and pass up everything else. I’m not goin’ to have that baby spoiled; so you can just keep your hands off him. It won’t do you any good to meddle anyway. I’ve got his promise and that means something to a boy like him.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” I said. “I s’pose everybody’s got to step out of the way to make room for your rotten old track team.”

“Be decent!” said Murph. “You know very well I’m not hurtin’ you any. You’ve got McGill at quarter for two more years and you’ve got two halfbacks that anybody’d be glad to have, now that Bixby’s eligible. What you need is big tackles; and if young Draper could help you out there I’d let you have him, and welcome.”

Well, he made me own up that I wasn’t exactly starvin’ to death for lack of good backs and I finally promised him I’d leave Draper alone. Maybe one reason I promised was because I knew it wouldn’t do me any good not to.

McGill was pretty near a perfect quarterback for my style of game. He could use his head as well as his legs and his right foot. I b’lieve that with him in the back field alone, I could have scored on anybody; but he had a good supportin’ company too. Bixby, who’d been on the All-Fresh, could run and grab passes with the best of ’em; and when the other side spraddled their defense all over the field to stop my open game, I had Conrad and Meeks to shoot through the holes.

In the next two seasons we were scored on just twice and nobody came near tyin’ us. You remember what we did to Pelham in 1911. We licked ’em 27 to 0 and that was the worst beatin’ they got in fifteen years. But 1911 was McGill’s last year, and Conrad’s and Meeks’ too. The Pelham papers all came out after the season and said our days of glory were about over; that losin’ McGill and Conrad and Meeks, besides some of the linemen, would leave us up against it, and Pelham, which had all their good ones comin’ back, would probably get plenty of revenge the followin’ fall.

I figured this dope was pretty near right and I was wishin’ my contract with Leighton had run out that season instead of holdin’ over another year; but the fact that the next was goin’ to be my last season, and that Pelham figured on givin’ us a good trimmin’, made me all the more anxious to beat ’em. And I didn’t think or dream about anything but football all that winter long.

In January I wrote to Murphy. I pointed out to him that I didn’t have a quarterback to take McGill’s place; there was nothin’ on the scrubs or Freshmen that looked even fair. I told him I thought I could make a dandy out of Draper, and I didn’t think it would be any more than right for Murphy to give me a whack at him after I’d laid off for two whole seasons. I said my chances of turnin’ out a team that wouldn’t disgrace Leighton for life depended on my gettin’ hold of a boy with Draper’s speed.

I made it pretty strong and Murphy fell. He said he would release Joe from his promise and if I could persuade him to come out for football, all right. So then I sat down and wrote to the kid. I gave him a nice little spiel about comin’ to the old school’s rescue, and told him that if I had a man of his speed in there we’d hang a surprise on Pelham and Marshall, and the rest of ’em, and he’d have a lot more honors to add to those he’d won on the track.

He wrote back a gentlemanly little note. He said he wasn’t after any glory for himself; but Leighton had been good to him and he felt as though he owed it to her to come out for football if I really needed him. And if Mr. Murphy was willin’ to release him from his promise I could count on him to show up in the fall. He asked to be excused from reportin’ early ’cause he had made engagements for the first two weeks in September. About the time he was writin’ this note to me he was gettin’ engaged to the girl I told you about, and the date he had for the followin’ September was with her people down in St. Louis. I found that out afterward.

Bixby’d been elected captain and I knew I’d have him to figure on. There was a big, strong kid named Ashton that I’d used as substitute for Conrad, and I was countin’ on makin’ a regular fullback out of him. I’d have to dig up another halfback and a kicker; I didn’t know then that Draper could kick. I’d lost my four best linemen, so there was another problem starin’ me in the face; but I gritted my teeth and said to myself that the bigger the handicap was I had to work against, the more fun it would be to put somethin’ over. And I thought and thought and figured and figured, till it got so bad that I’d wake myself up in the middle of the night, callin’ signals.

Bixby and the rest of the boys I’d invited showed up the first week in September. I started ’em all kickin’ and found that there wasn’t a man in the crowd that could punt one from here to that wall. As for drop and place kickin’, none of ’em could raise the ball off the ground. After three days I gave up and decided to wait till college opened and the rest of the squad showed up.

Then Draper came out and I got the surprise of my life. Just foolin’, his first day on the field, he dropped a couple of goals from forty yards out, and he cut loose some punts that would have made Pat O’Dea jealous. They went way up in the clouds and they averaged a good fifty yards. You can bet all you’ve got that I was tickled.

“Where did you learn to kick?” I said to Joe.

“I was a pretty fair kicker in high school,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I’m sorry we didn’t have you the last two years.”

“You got along all right without me,” said he, smilin’.

“Yes,” said I; “but you’ll fit in very nicely this year and, if you’re willin’, you’ll get three years’ work crowded into one.”

“That suits me,” he said. “When I go into a thing I like to go into it hard.”

Well, things went along pretty good and we opened up our season with Brandon. We beat ’em 13 to 0. We could have made it 40 to 0 without strainin’ ourselves; but I took pretty near the whole first string out when I saw how easy they were. I let Joe do a little puntin’ in the game, but I was keepin’ the other part of his kickin’ a secret. I told our newspaper boys about it and asked ’em not to say anything. They agreed, and then I knew I was safe and could give Joe plenty of practice shootin’ at goals without any danger of it gettin’ into print.

Honest, I never saw his equal as a point kicker; and I don’t except Eckersall or Brickley, or any of ’em. Give him proper protection, and he could score from forty yards out just as often as he tried.

That simplified matters a whole lot. Instead of workin’ up an offense that would get touchdowns, which was no cinch when I didn’t have a good plunger, all I had to do was figure somethin’ that would take me inside their forty-yard line. I knew there wasn’t much danger of Joe’s gettin’ hurt; he was a rugged kid for his size and, besides, I intended to play him safe. So I just went ahead and built round that right foot of his. I worked up some open stuff for him and Bixby that would gain if it wasn’t used often. Most of it was fakes from kick formation, ’cause, of course, I was goin’ strong to the puntin’ game with a feller like that to send ’em away.

Only when the gates were locked tight did we practice those plays of Bixby’s and Joe’s. The rest of the time we plunged or else we kicked; and people must have thought I was crazy to stick to the plungin’ game when I didn’t have a plunger who’d go into the line frontward. But we went through the practice season without showin’ anything else; and we went through clean too. Our line smashers didn’t smash. They backed up. But they were good enough, along with Joe’s puntin’, to win from Barnes and Riverside and Hotchkiss and the Indians. Even if they hadn’t been I wouldn’t have cared. I was out to trim Pelham and Marshall, and if those little dubs had licked us I’d have just laughed.

We had some mighty close shaves and everybody who saw us thought we’d get everlastingly slaughtered in our two big games. That’s just what I wanted ’em to think and it didn’t make any difference to me how much abuse I got. The New York papers were sayin’ I was loafin’ on the job ’cause it was my last year at Leighton. They said it was a crime for a coach that had as good a man as Bixby not to build an attack round him. They said I might be holdin’ somethin’ back, but they didn’t b’lieve so, ’cause the fellas I had in my backfield, outside of Bixby, didn’t even look capable of keepin’ a secret. They said the burden of bein’ captain was takin’ some of the football out of Bixby. And they said I ought to do somethin’ with Draper’s speed or else set him on the side lines, where there was no danger of his gettin’ hurt. One of the experts said he’d be willin’ to bet that Ashton, my fullback, could plunge three times into a bathtub full of water without makin’ a ripple. He was about right too.

Well, I was glad they thought I was soldierin’ on the job and that I didn’t have anything; but don’t imagine that I was enthusiastic over what I did have. My chance was better than anybody figured, but it wasn’t much good at that.

I had the best punter and point kicker I’d ever looked at, and he was a fast man too. Then I had Bixby, who’d made All-America the year before; but his strength was in his open-field work and his defense. He couldn’t plunge a yard against the wind. And I had one guard that was alive, and a pair of ends who could smash things up, but who weren’t worth a nickel apiece to catch a pass. They couldn’t have covered an ordinary man’s punts, either; but Joe’s went so high you could have driven a hearse down there and beat ’em to the fullback.

I worked for days at a time fixin’ up protection for Joe’s kicks. He made that part of it less of a job for me by learnin’ to get ’em off in next to nothin’. And when the week of the Pelham game came round I was pretty well satisfied that nobody’d break through in time to block ’em.

I’ll tell you just what I told the boys⁠—and I was tellin’ ’em the truth too. I said:

“Boys, we’re goin’ into this game the underdogs. You know just what we’ve got and I know what Pelham’s got. I’ll give it to you straight that Pelham’s got more than we have; but they think we’re a lot worse than we are. That’s our chance. They’re goin’ into this game overconfident and we’re goin’ into it determined. If you show all the football I’ve taught you, and if you never quit fightin’ from start to finish, you’ll beat ’em, ’cause they’ll be surprised to death. But if you ease up for a minute, or if you don’t carry out instructions, you’ll get the worst lickin’ in history. I’m not askin’ much of you. You haven’t got a complicated set of signals to think of. All you have to do is fight.

“I’m lookin’ to you linemen to see that they don’t get through on Joe’s kicks, and he’s goin’ to kick on pretty near every first down when the ball’s in our territory. I don’t have to tell you what your duty is if he gets a chance to shoot at their goal. We won’t score any touchdowns on ’em without a lot of luck; but we will score from the field if you boys hold up your end. And we’re li’ble to score more from the field than they can score against us, if Joe’s properly protected.

“You ends want to remember that Joe and Bix can’t get loose unless you knock those red sweaters galley-west. Keep your eyes open for red jerseys on those plays and drive into ’em. And when they’ve got the ball smash that interference if it breaks your necks. Remember that Winslow and Smith will run wild if you don’t bust up their interference so Bix and Ashton can get at ’em.

“You linemen can stop Eaton if you’re not afraid to get down. Pelham plays a high line, and that gives you fellers all the best of it if you keep at ’em and keep low. Eaton’s got a big reputation as a plunger, but you boys want to remember that the best plunger in the world can’t gain if he’s stopped before he gets to the line. Bix will tell you what defense to play and the minute he gives it to you, you do it, without stoppin’ to ask questions. This is his third game against those fellers and he knows what they’re up to better than you do.”

That’s what I told ’em the week of the game. I kept drivin’ it into those ends that our chance was to score from the field, and the only way we could get close enough was for them to cover Joe’s punts, or, on our fake plays, to put three or four red jerseys out of business.

I may as well tell you what our attack was; it won’t take but a minute. I figured Pelham would play their defense open all the time, ’cause they knew we couldn’t plunge and thought we might pass once in a while when we weren’t puntin’. So I had a shift that took the whole line except the left end over to the right of center. Then I had Joe back in the kickin’ position and Bixby pretty near as far back and over on the right side. Ashton and my other halfback, Warner, were up on the line, on the strong side. The ball was passed back to Joe and he made a bluff to throw it down the field on the strong side. I played my left end in the guard’s position, and the minute the ball was passed he’d let the man playin’ against him come on through. Bixby’d wait till this feller got pretty near on top of Joe and then he’d take the ball off Joe’s hand and run to their weak side. I figured on his speed to get him out of the way of the feller my left end had let through. After my end was free, he was supposed to knock their right halfback out of it. It was a good deal like the play Dickie and Benson have been usin’ all fall. It was to be used a couple of times, with shifts to both sides.

Then I had a fake kick that relied just on Joe’s speed and wouldn’t work more than once, and maybe not at all, ’cause they’d be layin’ for it and they had the men to stop it. And I had a pretty fair onside kick that I figured would work once or twice, ’cause Joe could kick ’em up in the clouds and Bixby wasn’t afraid to grab ’em when they came down.

And I had a lateral and forward pass from Joe to Ashton to Bixby. It was to be used just once. I was pretty sure it would go through, ’cause all my other passes were fakes; and, though Ashton wasn’t worth dependin’ on for anything in most plays, I’d drilled him so hard in this one that he got to doin’ it pretty good.

And then I had one pet. I’m goin’ to give it to the boys when I get ’em out there this afternoon. We called it Number 91 and it was a double-X special. The whole line except one man shifted to the right side. Then my backs lined up in tandem formation, close to the line on the right side, with Draper in the regular quarterback position. He’d call a long string of signals; and, when the other side thought the ball must be snapped pretty soon, Ashton, my fullback, would butt in and holler: “Wait a minute! Signals!”

Well, sir, nine times out of ten the other team would raise up and kind of stretch themselves while they were waitin’ for the signals to be started again; and the minute they raised up the ball was passed to Joe and he’d scoot wide round their weak end. We’d fooled the scrubs with it even when they knew what was comin’.

That was my offense. Ashton and Warner were to be sent into the line four or five times to give Joe and Bix a rest and to keep Pelham guessin’; but I knew neither of ’em could gain a foot.

Joe was to keep kickin’ and kickin’ till we were in the middle of the field, and then try somethin’ that would get us to where he could take a shot.

I had more different formations for defense than I had for attack. Pelham’s team was practically the same as the year before and I knew their plays like a book. Bix knew ’em, too, and I could rely on him to call the right defense for whatever they sprung; but I couldn’t rely on my men to do their part of it. If they’d been as strong and smart as my 1911 gang I’d have been willin’ to bet that the formations I’d planned would stop anything Pelham tried. But these boys were awful, awful green and all I could do was try to get ’em worked up to the fightin’ point and keep ’em there. I was backin’ up the line with Carey, my big guard, and I knew we were gone if anything happened to him.

Carey, Bixby and Draper⁠—that’s what I had. And I was actually plannin’ to beat eleven seasoned football players with those three, and two of ’em had never been in a real game.

We went over to Pelham Friday mornin’ and I rode with Joe all the way, tellin’ him what I expected of him.

“You’re the baby,” I said. “If you put this over there’ll be more glory in it for you than you could win in twenty track meets or ten college courses. Keep the ball high up and you’ll gain ten yards on every swap. Don’t forget that you’ve got to stick in the game. Don’t get hurt. Signal for a fair catch every time they kick to you, no matter where you are. And don’t be a bit afraid to take a shot at those uprights whenever you’re within forty yards. You can do it.”

I had ’em out at Pelham Field on Friday afternoon. I didn’t let Joe drop kick, ’cause, as I told you, nobody but our bunch knew he could; but he punted and he caught punts till he knew what the wind was apt to do in that stadium of theirs. The rest of the boys just warmed up and I didn’t keep ’em out there long⁠—I was afraid they might see some of those big, husky Pelham birds and get scared.

The bettin’ against us was 3 to 1. Those odds were about right on the showin’ we’d made and on the looks of the two teams on paper; but if I’d been anybody but who I was I’d have grabbed some of that short end, ’cause I knew we weren’t so long a shot as that.

Well, a couple of trainloads came from Leighton on Saturday morning. They were a brave gang to make the trip, ’cause ninety-nine out of every hundred of ’em thought we’d be murdered.

Joe’s girl was in the crowd. I’d seen her lots of times and admired her from a distance, but I never saw her look prettier than when he introduced her to me in the hotel lobby that mornin’.

“Is there any hope?” she asked me.

“A little,” I said. “It’s right there with you.”

Then she and Joe looked at each other and smiled, and she said:

“Well, if he’s it we’ll win, sure.”

“We will if he keeps his head,” said I.

“Oh,” said she, “there’s no danger of his not doin’ that. It must be you haven’t heard how clever Joe is.”

“I can see right now that he’s clever,” said I. And they smiled again and walked away.

Well, I took the boys out to the field late, so they wouldn’t have time to get nervous. I gave ’em one final talkin’ to in the dressin’ room; and I got Joe and Bix off to one side and told ’em, for the five-thousandth time, what they were to do. My last word to Joe was:

“Don’t be afraid to take a shot,” I said. “If you’re in good position it’s better to try one on the first down than run the risk of losin’ the ball on a fumble.”

That’s how sure I was that he could score from the field. I wish now I hadn’t been so sure.

I won’t have to waste much time tellin’ you about the game. They had the wind in the first quarter, but Joe held his own at that. Big Carey was a whale. He not only stopped Eaton, but he spilled most of their open stuff before they could get it started. Only twice did Smith or Winslow get loose, and then Bixby nailed ’em before they’d gone far. But the ball was in our territory all the while and we didn’t do anything but kick. I was pullin’ for Smith to muff one of those high punts, but he was as sure as taxes.

Well, it looked pretty good. We’d have the wind the next quarter and then Joe’s foot would put us up somewhere close. I was so anxious to get that wind back of us that those first fifteen minutes seemed like a week. Finally it came time for us to change goals; and then, sure enough, Joe lifted one over Smith’s head and she rolled out of bounds on their six-yard line. They brought her in and made one play to get out in the middle of the field. Eaton kicked against the wind and Joe grabbed her for a fair catch on their thirty-five-yard line. He was off to the side quite a bit; so he sent Bix out to the middle with her on the first play and then he dropped back for his first try.

“Now we’ll see if he’s there in the pinch,” I said to myself.

He was. The ball went about twenty feet above the crossbar and right straight between the posts. I wish you could have heard that crowd! Our little bunch made more noise than the German Army, and the whole Pelham gang let out a groan. It sure was a shock to ’em. They’d never suspected we had a Brickley and they couldn’t have been more surprised if we’d come on the field in nightgowns. I looked over to where Joe Bentley, their coach, was standin’, and I could see him scowlin’ clear across the field.

Well, the rest of the period was all puntin’, and we gained every whack, but not enough to get us within range again. My boys were playin’ like crazy men on defense and our only danger was that they’d wear out and let up. I was tickled to death when the end of the half came and they had a chance to rest.

“You’re goin’ to be against the wind this next quarter,” I told ’em. “You’ll have to work your heads off for fifteen minutes more, and then you’ll get that old breeze back of you again and it’ll be all over but the shoutin’. They’ll try to rough you from now on, Joe. Keep out of their way all you can. That one long punt put you in right that time. Maybe you’ll have another piece of luck like that; but, if you don’t, remember, they haven’t seen any of our plays yet and they all ought to work⁠—what there is of ’em. You’ll be All-America, Carey, if you keep goin’. Don’t ease up for a minute, boys! We’ve got ’em in a hole now and all you have to do is fight.”

I was right about their roughin’ Joe, but they were too smart to get caught at it. They didn’t bump him after he’d kicked; but occasionally they got a chance at him while Ashton and Warner were givin’ a demonstration of how to get stopped on a crossbuck. They’d come through and fall into my star performer as though it was an accident; and I might have thought it was if I hadn’t known it wasn’t. But Joe seemed to be standin’ the gaff all right. He never had to ask for time. Bixby, though, was dropped for the count twice in succession and I began worryin’ about him.

I could see that my whole bunch were gettin’ tired along in the last end of that third quarter, but I couldn’t relieve ’em, ’cause my substitutes were an awful bunch of cheese. I did send in one new tackle, with instructions to have somebody lay down after every play, so the boys could get plenty of rest. They were too green to do that without tellin’ ’em.

We still had ’em 3 to 0 goin’ into the last quarter. The wind was with us now and I wasn’t lookin’ for any trouble. But it came. They had the ball on their own forty-yard line, with three to go on the fourth down. Eaton dropped back to kick. It was a fake and Winslow came scootin’ round our right end. I saw he was goin’ to make his distance, but I wasn’t really scared till Bix missed him.

I don’t know yet how he could have, ’cause Winslow was straight up and didn’t even dodge. Well, he got by Bix somehow and it looked for a minute as though Joe’d miss him too; but Joe finally chased him out of bounds. They were on our twelve-yard line.

I knew they’d plunge with Eaton now. Bixby knew it too. He called the right defense for it, but the boys were all in. They couldn’t stop him. He went over in five punches and somebody kicked the goal.

“Good night!” I said to myself; and I was as happy as a Belgian farmer.

There was about seven minutes to play and my kids were dyin’ on their feet. The crowd was hollerin’ so I could hardly think. There didn’t seem to be much use of thinkin’ anyway. Two minutes before we’d looked like a cinch. Now we were a million-to-one shot.

The ball was kicked off and punted back and forth before I realized they were playin’ again. I suddenly woke up to the fact that Joe was still puntin’ on first downs. I grabbed one of my cheesy substitutes off the bench. I hustled him out there to tell Joe to cut loose with all he had.

“Try the bluff passes; and if they don’t work give ’em your onside kick.” That’s what I told him.

It was our ball on our own twenty-five when my messenger went in. We had three minutes to play. Joe called a fake pass play and I thought Bix was goin’ to get away, sure; but he stumbled and tackled himself after he’d gone ten yards.

Then the onside kick, and it worked better than I ever saw it. Joe sent the ball just far enough for Bix to get it on the dead run, and he was off down the field like a shot. If he’d been fresh Smith couldn’t have stopped him with a lasso. He was actually past Smith once and there was nothin’ between him and the goal; but he’d played himself out, poor boy, and he couldn’t make a finish. Smith nailed him from behind on their eight-yard line and they went down together like a ton of brick. And Bixby didn’t get up.

They carried him off the field and he was ravin’ like a wild man. He was tellin’ ’em he’d scored and the officials had robbed him. He started cussin’ me out, but I didn’t have time to listen⁠—I was too busy givin’ my order to the kid that was to take his place.

“Tell Joe Number 91,” I said. “Don’t forget it! Number 91! Number 91!”

There we were, on their eight-yard line, with a minute to play. Old 91 would score just as sure as taxes!

Pelham was scared stiff. They were ready to be licked and that’s the play that would do it. Their defense was drawn in, ’cause we were so close up and ’cause they didn’t think we had anybody to run their ends, with Bixby out of it.

The kid dashed in and gave Joe the dope. We lined up, and all of a sudden Joe dropped back to his kickin’ position. That wasn’t 91 and I saw there was somethin’ wrong. But what could I do? I started on the field myself, and then I started to send in another sub. But it was too late! Joe, standin’ back there on the eighteen-yard line, called for the ball and shot another drop kick square between the posts!

Don’t say a word! You can’t say anything I didn’t say. I was out there among ’em myself when the next kickoff was caught, but it didn’t make any difference. Time was up before a play could be started, and then I got Joe. Right in front of my team and part of Pelham’s, I gave it to him:

“You bonehead!” I yelled. “You boob! You blockhead! You’re smart, are you? You’re the bright boy in your class, are you? You ignorant bum! Why don’t you study arithmetic, you poor numskull! Where did you learn that six was more than seven? Who told you that three and three was eight or nine? Four points behind and you dropkick! Why didn’t you take the ball and run back to your own goal? Why were you in there if you didn’t know the game? Go into the gym and drown yourself in the shower! Get out of my sight before I murder you!”

The Pelham team were hollerin’ at him too. And you ought to have heard the crowd!

“Oh, you bonehead!” they were yellin’⁠—Pelham, Leighton and everybody.

There’s no use describin’ what came off in the gym. Poor Bixby was still off his nut, but the rest of ’em hopped into Draper as though they’d cut his throat. And they were as much to blame as he was. When they heard the signal they should have stopped him; but they didn’t think of that, and I couldn’t think of anything. All I could do was rave.

The kid I’d sent in with the orders established his alibi right off. He’d done his duty. Joe admitted it. Joe said he was rattled and thought 91 was one of our dropkick signals; that he got it balled up with 19.

“How could you do that?” I barked at him. “How could you think I’d tell you to drop kick, with the ball on their eight-yard line, a minute to play, and the score 7 to 3 against us?”

“I lost my head,” said Joe.

“Impossible!” said I. “You couldn’t lose what you never had.”

Pretty soon Bixby came to. He asked for the score and we told him. We told him what had happened, and he lit into Joe pretty near as hard as I had.

Reporters generally miss the important details of a football game, but not a one of ’em missed Joe’s boner. There were whole columns about it. The Pelham papers went to it strongest, ’cause Joe’d been showin’ up their track team for two years and they loved him like a snake.

I’ll give you the windup in a few words. Nobody saw Joe from the time he left the Pelham dressin’ room till a week after the Marshall game, which wound up our season and my career as coach at Leighton. Marshall beat us by the narrow margin of 40 to 0.

Joe’d gone home, and he’d gone home intendin’ to stay; but his people felt so bad he couldn’t stand it. They got him to promise that he’d finish his senior year. So back he came to Leighton.

I ducked out right after the season was over, but I heard all about Joe. He didn’t even last through the semester. There were some fellas in college decent enough to treat him as though nothin’ had happened. There were others who couldn’t resist the temptation to get back at a boy who’d outshone ’em in athletics and scholarship and everything else. They kept pestering him and they finally had him so he was cuttin’ classes to keep away from ’em. He lost that smile of his. He also lost some of his good habits. And he lost the girl.

I’ve figured since that she wasn’t worth keepin’ if she’d quit under fire like that; but naturally Joe couldn’t see it that way. The worse your girl treats you, the better you like her. That’s how I’ve got it doped. Anyway, that’s how it worked on Joe. It was the finisher for him.

I’m keepin’ a line on him yet and the latest report is hopeful. He’s still mopin’ down in that burg in Iowa, but he’s showin’ occasional signs of life and smilin’ once in a great while. I won’t get a good night’s sleep, though, till he’s all over it. I’m afraid that won’t be for a year or two more. I wrote him a letter that I thought might cheer him up. He never paid any attention to it.

I wrote the girl a letter too. I told her it was my fault⁠—that Joe had pulled the play under orders; but she didn’t fall for it. She wrote back that she was grateful for my interest and appreciated my motives in tellin’ her what wasn’t true. The break between her and Joe, she said, had nothin’ to do with football. She’d just decided that they weren’t suited to each other. Some bunk, eh? A hero was what she was after, and I hope she gets one that’ll make her wish she’d stuck to Joe⁠—not wishin’ her any bad luck.

Don’t think I haven’t been punished for my part in it. I’ve told you that I couldn’t sleep, thinkin’ about the poor kid; but I haven’t told you about the pannin’ I got from Murphy, Leighton’s track coach.

I went back there the followin’ spring as a favor to Chandler, my successor. I went to give him the dope on his material. I was lookin’ for him in the athletic office when I bumped into Murph.

“Hello, Murph!” I said, but he didn’t even look at me. I stepped right in front of him. “You’re certainly cordial!” I said. “Can’t you say anything to a man you haven’t seen for six months?”

“I can say plenty,” he answered, “but I don’t b’lieve you’ll like to hear it.”

“Sure I will!” said I. “Go ahead and shoot.”

“All right,” said Murphy; and he sailed into me. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were somethin’ like this:

“I s’pose you’re proud of what you’ve done to my track team. I s’pose you’re glad you’ve broken it up. But I don’t care about that. What I do care about is your breakin’ up that boy’s life. You coaxed him into football and he made it possible for you to scare Pelham with a team that Pelham ought to have licked 50 to 0. You found out the boy was a star and you used his ability to the limit. If you’d trimmed Pelham he’d have got a little credit, maybe, and you’d have hogged most of it. And, without him, you’d have felt like forfeitin’ the game. Your team showed what he was worth to it when you played Marshall with him gone, and got licked 40 to 0.

“You gave him orders to drop kick on first down whenever he got within their forty-yard line. He carried out your orders and you called him a bonehead. You say that he ought to have used judgment, and yet you knew he was just a kid, twenty years old, and that he’d never played in a real game of football before.

“You wanted to make the world think you were a wizard. You saw a victory over Pelham right in your grasp, and you could almost hear the people sayin’ what a wonderful man you were to win with nothin’. Then you lost in the last minute of play and it drove you insane. I’m givin’ you the benefit of the doubt when I say you were insane. I certainly hope you weren’t in your right mind when you called Joe those names.

“The trouble with you football coaches is that you expect too much. You forget that your players are just boys, hardly out of their teens. You want a kid twenty years old to think as much football as you yourselves, and you’ve been studyin’ and teachin’ the game for fifteen years. And if the kid doesn’t learn in one short season all you’ve learned in fifteen years you call him a bonehead and ruin him. Do you call it sport to shove more responsibility on to a kid than a grown man should be asked to bear, and then jump all over him when he fails? What’s a football game compared with a boy’s career! When you called him a numskull you were talkin’ to the wrong party. You should have been lookin’ in a mirror!”

That’s all I can remember of it, and that’s plenty. Pretty near everything he said was true, and I knew it. He left me without sayin’ goodbye, and I beat it out of town without seein’ my successor. I wanted to get away somewhere and think.

I did think, boys, and I thought hard. The more I thought the worse I felt. I was mighty sore at myself when I got up home again; and I figured maybe I’d get a little sympathy if I told my wife the whole story. Course she knew how we’d lost that game, but I’d never given her the dope about Joe’s finish. She sure was sympathetic⁠—for Joe.

“Poor young kid!” she said. “If I didn’t think you were sorry I b’lieve I’d leave you.”

So you can see why I shook hands with Dickie on Saturday instead of scoldin’ him. He was disobeyin’ orders, but he thought he was doin’ somethin’ brilliant. He fooled everybody but the other team, and he cost us the game; but I’m goin’ to need that fightin’ spirit of his against Doane next Saturday. And you just watch his smoke!

Good for the Soul

Before me, a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, appeared this first day of February, 1916, one Robert Frederick Warner, alias Buck Warner, lately a professional player of the game known as baseball and now part owner of an automobile garage in Hopsboro, a suburb of Cincinnati, and voluntarily and without threat or coercion did dictate a confession, the full text of which follows:

The Crook

Tomorrow mornin’ you’ll see statement in the papers, signed by Ban, sayin’ that it’s been learned that they was some excuse for Bull doin’ what he done, and that the charge of him bein’ pickled on the field wasn’t true, and that he’s been took back on the staff. But they won’t be nothin’ printed about who was the dandy little fixer; my part in it is a secret between you and I and one or two others.

I don’t suppose they’s a ball player in the League that Bull’s chased as often as me. I don’t suppose they’s anybody he’s pulled as much of his stuff on. I can’t count the times I’ve got cute with him, but the times I got the best o’ the repartee I can count ’em on the fingers of a catcher’s mitt. Just the same, it was me that went to Ban with the real dope and was the cause of him gettin’ rehired, and it was me that got him his girl back, though he don’t know about that yet.

I wouldn’t of took no trouble in the case if it was any other umps but Bull. But I come as near likin’ him as a man could like a guy that never give a close one any way but against you. And he’s a good umps, too; he guesses about a third of ’em right, where the rest o’ Ban’s School for the Blind don’t see one in ten. And another thing: I felt sorry for him when he told me the deal he got. And besides that, he’s gave me too many good laughs for me to stand by and see him canned out o’ the League. Many’s the time I’ve made a holler just to hear what he’d say, and he always said somethin’ worth hearin’, even if it stung; that is, up to day before yesterday, when the blow-off come.

I noticed he wasn’t himself when I was throwed out at the plate in the second innin’. I wanted to stop at third, but Jack made me keep goin’, and Duff Lewis all ready to shoot with that six-inch howitzer he wears in his right sleeve. Cady and the ball strolled out to meet me and I couldn’t get past ’em.

“You’re out!” says Bull.

“He didn’t tag me,” I says.

And Bull didn’t say a word.

In the fourth innin’ Hooper was on third base and somebody hit a fly ball to Shano. Hooper scored after the catch and big Cahill run out from the bench and made a holler that he’d left the bag too quick. The ball was throwed over to third base, but Tommy wouldn’t allow the play. Then Cahill went to Bull and ast him hadn’t he saw it. O’ course Bull says he hadn’t.

“No, I guess not!” says Cahill. “Us burglars stick together.” And then, on the way back to the bench, he turned to Bull and says: “You’re so crooked you could sleep in a French horn.”

Bull was just puttin’ on his mask, but he throwed it on the ground and tore after Cahill. He nailed him right on the edge o’ the dugout, and what a beatin’ he give him! It took eight or nine of us to drag him off, and he managed to wallop everybody at least once durin’ the action. Some o’ the boys picked Cahill up and carried him to the clubhouse. He was a wreck. Bull stood there a minute, starin’ at nothin’; then he turned and faced the grand stand.

“Anybody else,” he yelled⁠—“anybody else that thinks I’m a crook can come down and get a little o’ the same.”

Well, they wasn’t no need of extra police to keep the crowd back. But Ban was settin’ in the stand and o’ course he wasn’t goin’ to just set there and not do nothin’. It was too raw. So he give orders for the cops to grab Bull and get him out o’ the way before he committed murder. They led him to his dressin’ room and stuck with him w’ile he changed clo’es. Then they called the wagon and give him a ride. Tommy handled the rest o’ the game alone and we was beat just as bad as if nothin’ had happened.

Right after the game the witnesses was examined. Cahill’s lips was so swelled he couldn’t hardly talk. But several of us had heard the whole thing and could testify they hadn’t been no profanity. Cahill hadn’t no license to call Bull crooked, but if an umps was goin’ to fight for a little thing like that, every ball game’d wind up in a holycaust. Besides, “a crook” was one o’ the mildest things Bull’d ever been called, and till this time nobody’d ever knew him to lose his temper.

As I say, his specialty was conversation. When they was a kick made, he’d generally always pull some remark that got a laugh from everybody but the fella that was crabbin’, and sometimes from he himself. He’d canned plenty o’ guys out o’ the ball game for tryin’ too hard to show him up, but he’d did it as part o’ the day’s work and without displayin’ any venoms. I’d heard ’em tell him he was yellow, and blind, and a jellyfish, and a “homer,” and a thief, and a liar; and that he’d steal the cream off’n his mother’s coffee; and that his backbone was all above the neck. I’d heard ’em call him fightin’ names and saw him take it smilin’. And now, because a fella made an innocent remark about him bein’ crooked, and no naughty words along with it, he’d went off his bean and all but destroyed a good Irish citizen, besides intimidatin’ five or six thousand o’ the unemployed.

It wasn’t no wonder everybody thought what they thought, though Bull hadn’t never been known to touch a drop between April and October.

“I’ll uphold my umpires when they’re right,” Ban says to the reporters; “but when they’re wrong, they got to suffer for it. They’s only just the one explanation for Bull’s actions. So he’s discharged from the staff.”

“What about Cahill?” ast somebody. “Goin’ to suspend him?”

“No,” says Ban. “Bull saved me the trouble.”

Well, Tommy fixed it up to have Bull let out o’ jail and took him back to the hotel where the two o’ them was stoppin’. When Tommy told him he was canned he didn’t make no comments only to say that they was one good thing about the umpirin’ job⁠—you didn’t feel bad if you lost it.

On my way home from the game I got to thinkin’ about Bull and what a shame it was to have him let out for just the one slip, and wonderin’ what he’d do with himself, and so on. So when I’d had supper I rode down to the umps’ beanery to try and find him, and maybe cheer him up.

He’d went out. Tommy told me he’d disappeared after askin’ for his mail and not gettin’ none.

“He’ll come back with a fine package,” says Tommy.

“Do you know what made him fall off?” I says.

“He didn’t fall off,” says Tommy. “That’s the funny part of it. I and him was right up in my room readin’ the papers all mornin’; then we had lunch and went out to the park together and got dressed and went on the field. I noticed he was grouchin’, but I was with him every minute o’ the day up to game time and I know for a fact that he didn’t have nothin’ to drink only his coffee at breakfast. Somethin’s happened to him, but I don’t like to get inquisitive because we haven’t only been teamin’ together a couple o’ weeks.”

I and Tommy didn’t have nothin’ else to do, so we set down in the writin’ room and chinned. Bull, o’ course, was the subject o’ the conversation. You could talk about him all week and not tell half o’ the stuff.

The first game he umpired in our League was openin’ day in Chi, four or five years ago. It was our club and St. Louis. I guess he was about twenty-six years old then, but he didn’t look more’n twenty. So the boys was inclined to ride him. Arnold, the St. Louis catcher, started on him in the first innin’.

“Did you ever see a ball game, kid?” he ast him.

“No,” says Bull, “but if I make good these four days, I’m goin’ to stay here for the Detroit series.”

Arnold come up with the bases full and two out in the fourth or fifth. He took three healthy lunges and fanned. I led off in our half and Bull called the first one a ball. It was pretty close and Arnold, peeved about strikin’ out in the pinch, slammed the pill on the ground.

“You’re a fine umpire!” he says.

“I can’t be right all the time,” says Bull. “Even the best of us misses ’em sometimes. But I’ll have to miss the next two in succession to tie your score.”

We was one run ahead when the ninth begin. We got two o’ them out and then Hank Douglas made a base hit and stole second. The next fella made another base hit, but Shano fielded it clean and Hank was called out at the plate.

“That’s right,” he says to Bull. “Favor the home team. You wouldn’t be umpirin’ in this league if you wasn’t yellow.”

“No,” says Bull, walkin’ away, “and you wouldn’t be in the League at all if you wasn’t a Brown.”

In one o’ the Detroit games Cobb was on second base with a man out and Crawford hit a slow ground ball between short and third. The ball was fielded to first base and Cobb kept right on for home. Parker was catchin’ for us and he was a little spike-shy, especially with Cobb. So when the ball was relayed to him from first base he backed off in an alley somewheres and give Tyrus the right o’ way. Somebody hollered from the bench that Cobb hadn’t touched third.

“Yes, I seen it,” says Parker to Bull, lookin’ for an alibi. “He cut third base.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bull says, “but it’s a safe bet that he’ll never cut you.”

Bull went with us for our first series in Cleveland that year. They was a fly-ball hit to Lawton in the third and he muffed it square, lettin’ in a couple o’ runs. As soon as he’d dropped the ball he looked up in the sky and then stopped the game till he’d ran in and got his glasses, though it was so cloudy that we was hurryin’ to beat the rain. Right afterward, when Lawton come to bat, Bull called a strike on him.

“Too high! Too high!” says Lawton.

“Maybe it was,” says Bull. “I lost it in the sun.”

A little w’ile later the Cleveland club had a chance to tie us up. It was some left-hand batter’s turn to hit, but they was a cockeye pitchin’ for us, so they sent up a kid named Brodie, a right-hander, to pinch hit. He swung at the first one and missed it. The next one was called a strike, and w’ile he was turned round, arguin’ with Bull about it, another one come whizzin’ over and Bull says:

“You’re out!”

“It wasn’t a legal delivery,” says Brodie.

“Why not?” says Bull. “His feet was on the slab and you wasn’t out o’ your box.”

“You got a lot to learn about baseball,” says Brodie.

“I’m learnin’ fast,” says Bull. “I just found out why they call your club the Naps.”

He didn’t put nobody out of a game till along in the middle o’ that season. We was playin’ Washin’ton and Kennedy was in a battin’ slump. He was sore at the world and tryin’ to take it out on the umps. He’d throwed his glove all over the field and tossed his cap in the air and beefed on every decision, if it was close or not. He struck out twice, and when Bull called a strike on him his third time up, he stooped over and grabbed a handful o’ dirt.

“A yard outside!” he says, and tossed the dirt to’rds Bull.

“Well, Mr. Kennedy,” Bull says, “if there is a yard outside, that’s where you better spend the rest o’ the afternoon.”

“Am I out o’ the game?” says Kennedy.

“Hasn’t nobody told you?” says Bull. “You been out of it pretty near two weeks.”

“You’re about as funny as choppin’ down trees,” says Kennedy.

“Go in and dress,” Bull told him. “Maybe you’ll find your battin’ eye in your street clo’es.”

The next day Bull was umpirin’ the bases. Kennedy didn’t get suspended, and when he come to bat in the first innin’ and seen that Bull had switched, he yelled to him: “Congratulations! You ought to do better out there. It’s a cinch you couldn’t do worse.”

“Walter,” says Bull to Johnson, who was pitchin’, “give Kennedy a base on balls. I want to talk to him.”

In the last game o’ the series Kennedy finally did get a hold o’ one and hit it for two bases.

“Now it’s my turn to congratulate you,” Bull says to him.

“Oh,” says Kennedy, “I can hit ’em all right when they’s a good umps behind that plate.”

W’ile he was still talkin’, whoever was pitchin’ wheeled round and catched him a mile off’n the bag. Bull waved him out and he started to crab.

“Go on in to the bench, Kennedy,” says Bull. “The game must look funny to you from here anyway.”

Big Johnson worked against us in Chi one day and he had more stuff than I ever seen him have. Poor little Weber, facin’ him for the first time, was scared stiff. He just stood there and took three. Next time, he struck at one and let the next two come right over. Bull, who was back o’ the plate, couldn’t help from laughin’ and the kid got sore.

“Why don’t you call ’em all strikes!” he says.

“I would,” Bull says, “only they’s just a few o’ them I can see.”

Well, Weber’s third trip up there was just like his first one. He didn’t even swing. And after Bull had called him out for the third time, he says:

“Fine work, umps! You ought to go to an oculist and get the dust took out o’ your eyes.”

“Yes,” says Bull, “and you ought to go to a surgeon and have the bat removed from your shoulder.”

One afternoon Jennin’s started a kid named Sawyer against us. He was hog wild and he throwed ten balls without gettin’ a strike.

“It looks like a tough day for us, Bull,” says Stanage.

“Well, anyway,” Bull says, “my right arm needs a good rest.”

When two fellas had walked and they was two balls on the next one, Sawyer pitched a ball that you could of called either way. Bull called it a ball.

“What was the matter with that one?” says Sawyer.

“You pitched it,” says Bull.

He was base umpire once when Walsh caught Carney flatfooted off o’ third base. It was in the ninth innin’ and they was only the one run behind us, so Carney begin to whine.

“Kind o’ drowsy, eh?” says Bull. “I’ll bet your mother was up all night with you.”

Before the end of his first season he had the boys pretty well scared o’ that tongue of his’n and they weren’t none o’ them sayin’ much to him. But o’ course, durin’ the winter, they forgot how he could lash ’em, and when spring come again he was as good as ever. It’s been that way every season since. Along about this time, and up to July, they’re layin’ themself wide open and takin’ all he can give. Then, from July on, they’re tired o’ bein’ laughed at and they see they can’t get the best of him, so they lay off.

Not me, though. I beef on every decision he makes against me all season long. I can get as good a laugh when it’s me that’s the goat as when it’s somebody else.

He’s pulled some pippins on me. I wisht I’d wrote down even half o’ them, but anyway they don’t sound as good when I tell ’em as when he sprung ’em on me.

I remember we was playin’ our last series with the Boston club in 1912. They’d cinched the pennant already and nobody cared a whole lot how our games come out. I’ve got plenty o’ friends in Boston, and the first night we was there I neglected to go to bed. So the next afternoon I was kind o’ logy.

I dropped a couple o’ thrown balls at first base and was off the bag once when I had all the time in the world to find it. Well, Bull had three or four close ones to guess and he guessed ’em all against us.

“Are you goin’ to work in the World’s Series?” I ast him.

“I haven’t heard,” he says.

“If you do,” I says, “I’m goin’ to bet my season’s pay on the Red Sox.”

“If you’re lookin’ for easy money,” says Bull, “why don’t you go ahead and bet your season’s pay on the Red Sox, and then sign with the Giants to play first base?”

In 1914 I’d been havin’ a long spell o’ bad luck with my hittin’ and they was just gettin’ ready to bench me when one day, in St. Louis, I got one safe. I tried to make two bases on it, but overslid the bag and Bull called me out.

“Oh, Bull!” I says. “Have a heart.”

“They won’t bawl you for this,” says Bull. “You ain’t been here in so long it’s no wonder you forgot where the station was. I think you done pretty well to remember my name. I been umpirin’ the bases for two weeks.”

Then they was once in Boston, just last year. We still had a chance yet and we was crazy to take a fall out o’ that bunch. I was overanxious, I guess. Anyway, it was a tight game and in the sixth or seventh innin’ I got caught off o’ first. “Bull,” I says, “if you’re with the home club, why don’t you wear a white suit?”

“Larry,” says he, “you ought to play ball in your pyjamas.”

And in New York one day I give somebody the hit and run, and the ball fooled me and I didn’t swing. The fella was throwed out at second base, and Bull called it a strike on me.

“Why, Bull!” I says. “He was wastin’ that ball.”

“Sure he was,” says Bull. “All the good balls is wasted on you.”

And once in Washin’ton, we was two runs to the good in the ninth and had two men out and it looked all over. The next man⁠—Milan, I think it was⁠—hit a fly ball straight up and I hollered I was goin’ to take it. Well, it just missed beanin’ me and Milan pulled up at second base. The next fella hit a ground ball between I and the bag. I missed it clean. Milan scored and the other fella stopped at second. Then somebody made a three-base hit. The score was tied and the winnin’ run was on third base.

A slow ground ball was hit down to’rds me. I seen that Doran, who was pitchin’, was goin’ for the ball instead o’ the bag and I seen that the ball was mine and I’d have to get it and chase back with it myself. I done it as fast as I could and the play was mighty close. Bull called the man safe. It meant the game and we was all sore, but me especially, on account o’ them two flivvers.

“You blind owl!” I says to Bull. “Who told you you could umpire?”

“Who recommended you to Griffith?” says Bull.

That’s the way he was. You could set up all night and figure out what you was goin’ to say to him next day, and then when you said it, he’d come back with somethin’ that made you wish you hadn’t. That is, unless you was like me and kept after him just for the laughs he give you.

I and Tommy set there talkin’ till pretty close to midnight. Then we decided they wasn’t no more use waitin’ for Bull. So Tommy went up to his room and I moseyed out the front door and onto the walk. I hadn’t took more’n a couple o’ steps when I seen the guy we’d been fannin’ about. He was just goin’ in to the hotel bar. I followed him.

“Hello, Bull!” I says, when we was both inside.

“What’s the idear?” he says. “Did you come clear down here to tell me that Cady didn’t tag you?”

“No,” I says. “He tagged me all right. But I’m taggin’ you to find out what’s got into you.”

“I guess I got plenty into me now,” says he. “When a man that’s cold sober gets fired from his job for bein’ lit, they’s only the one thing to do. I’ve been tryin’ my best all evenin’ to deserve the reputation they’ve wished on me.”

I give him the double O. He could walk straight and he could talk straight. But he was kind of owl-eyed and his face looked like a royal flush o’ diamonds.

“Let’s have somethin’,” he says.

“You’ve had enough,” says I.

“That’s no sign I ain’t goin’ to have more,” he says.

“You better go to bed,” I says.

“What for?” says he. “I got nothin’ to do tomorrow or any other tomorrow. I’m through.”

“They’s other leagues,” says I. “You won’t have no trouble gettin’ a job.”

“I don’t want no job,” says Bull. “I haven’t no use for a job.”

“What are you goin’ to live on?” I ast him.

“I don’t want to live,” he says.

“Aw, piffle!” says I. “You’ll feel better for a good night’s sleep.”

“Well,” says Bull, “they’s just as much chance o’ me gettin’ a good night’s sleep as they is o’ them playin’ part o’ the World’s Series in Peoria.”

“Bull,” I says, “I believe they’s somethin’ botherin’ you outside o’ losin’ your job.”

“You’re too smart to be playin’ ball,” he says.

O’ course I knowed then that Tommy’d been right⁠—that the old boy had had a blow o’ some kind. And I was mighty curious to learn what’d came off. But I realized it wouldn’t get me nothin’ to ask.

We h’isted three or four together without exchangin’ a word. Then, all of a sudden, I seen a big tear streakin’ down Bull’s cheek and in another minute I was listenin’ to his story.

Bull’s parents is both dead⁠—been dead five or six years. He never had no brothers or sisters or aunts or uncles or nothin’. He was born down South somewheres and didn’t have no use for cold weather, but his old man moved to Buffalo when Bull was about sixteen, so from that time till his mother and father died he spent his winters, and the summers before he went to umpirin’, up North. They wasn’t no reason why he shouldn’t suit himself after the old people passed out, so back South he went for his winters. He stayed in New Orleans the first couple o’ years, but it cost him a pile o’ money. Then he tried Montgomery, and that’s where he met the lady.

Her name’s Maggie, Maggie Gregory. Bull described her as the prettiest thing he ever seen, and so on. The Gregorys didn’t have so much dough that they didn’t know how to spend it. In fact, they was kind o’ hard up. The head o’ the house worked in a hardware store for somethin’ like fifteen a week. He had a son named Martin; yes, sir, the same Martin Gregory that Connie Mack let go last week and we got signed up now.

Martin and Maggie was twins. Maggie was learnin’ the milliner trade, but at the time Bull met ’em Martin wasn’t workin’ at all, except durin’ meals. He was one o’ the kind o’ guys that’d rather go to the electric chair, where he could be sure o’ settin’ down, than attend the theater and take a chance o’ havin’ to stand up w’ile they played the “Star-Spangled Banner.” If he’d lived in a town where they wasn’t no letter carriers he wouldn’t never got no mail. He’d of starved to death in a cafeteria with a pocket full o’ money.

He treated the whole of his family like they was waiters, and they treated him like he was the Kaiser. His mother was crazy over him, and Maggie used to split fifty-fifty with him on her princely salary. The old man never called him, and seemed to just take it for granted that Martin was born to have the best of it.

Bull landed in Montgomery the same time that the Gregorys made up their mind to take a boarder. They put an ad in the paper and Bull answered it. He answered it in the evenin’, when Maggie was home. After gettin’ a look at her, he’d of stayed there if they made him sleep in the sink and give him nothin’ to eat but catnip.

Maggie and Martin was eighteen then. They ain’t no use o’ me tryin’ to give you Bull’s description of her. Martin, accordin’ to Bull, was a handsome kid and had the best clo’es his sister’s money could buy. He was built like an ath-a-lete and his features was enough like the girl’s to make him good-lookin’. Bull fell for him this first night; he didn’t know nothin’ then about the feud between Martin and Work.

Well, they all treated Bull like he was an old friend and made him feel more like it was his own house than just a place to board. Maggie smiled at him every time she seen him, though it wasn’t no case o’ love at first sight on her part; she was just tryin’ to be friendly. The old lady worried if he didn’t take nine or ten helpin’s o’ whatever was on the table, and kept his room as neat and clean as Martin’s. The old man played rummy with him three or four times a week and give Bull good laughs on all his quick stuff. And Martin took kindly to him, too, figurin’ probably that the dough Bull paid for board would mean more dude clo’es in the wardrobe. Bull says he never knowed what this here Southern hospitality was till he went to live with the Gregorys.

It wasn’t till Bull had been there about three weeks that he told ’em what he done for a livin’. Well, the old people and Maggie didn’t know nothin’ about baseball except that Martin, when he was a kid, had been the best player in the school where he attended at. He’d told ’em so. But Martin himself, it turned out, was a nut on the national pastime. He knowed who Cobb was and who Matty was and their records, right down to little bits o’ fractions. Not only that, but he went to see the Montgomery bunch perform whenever they had the courage to face the home crowd. So Bull was a hero to him, in spite of his profession.

At meals, Martin wouldn’t talk nothin’ but baseball, and Bull had to talk it with him. I suppose the proud parents and Maggie felt kind o’ sorry for Bull, figurin’ that the kid, bein’ perfect, was gettin’ all the best of him in the arguments. The old boy was foxy enough to see that the easiest way to win Maggie was by helpin’ to make Martin look good. So when they’d got about so far in a fannin’ bee, Bull’d stop dead and say, “By George! You’re right,” even if Martin was arguin’ that Walter Johnson ought to learn to throw left-handed and play third base.

Bull thought he was just a fresh kid. He thought the reason he wasn’t workin’ was probably because he’d lost a job and hadn’t found another. He liked Martin OK till he begin to suspect that he was too proud to toil. It was the old lady that give him the hunch, when she says somethin’ about the kid’s delicate health.

“Yes,” Bull says to himself, “he’s awful delicate lookin’, like Frank Gotch.”

Before the winter was half over, Bull was givin’ ’em the time o’ their lives, takin’ ’em somewheres every other night. It was a pipe that Maggie liked him, and it was a bigger pipe that she had him on her reserve list, with no chance to get away. But he was too shy to talk to her about anything but the climate; he says she was the first girl he was ever scared of.

Along in March, some o’ the Montgomery ball players showed up for their trainin’. Bull always took some work in the spring to get himself hard and fix up his windpipes, so that year he joined the local bunch and done stunts with them. Martin ast to go along with him the third or fourth day. So out they went together to the Montgomery orchard and Bull got the biggest su’prise of his life.

Instead o’ settin’ up in the stand and lookin’ on, Martin peeled down to his shirtsleeves and busted right into the practice. He tackled the high-low game first, and Bull says to see him at it you wouldn’t of never believed it was the same boy that wouldn’t drink coffee unless you held the cup to his mush. Baseball wasn’t work to him⁠—it was fun. And that made the whole difference.

Well, Martin showed so much life the first day that Bull borrowed a suit for him and fixed it with the Montgomery gang to leave him frolic round their park as much as he liked. And he wasn’t no joke with the ath-a-letes. He didn’t know nothin’, but he had as much mechanical ability as you ever see in a kid. He could whip the ball round like a shot, and he was good on ground balls and he swung the old stick like it was a lath. Bull give him a lot o’ pointers and so did the rest o’ the boys, and by the time Bull was ready to go North, Martin was good enough to hold down an infield job somewhere in the brush.

Maggie and old Gregory was as proud as peacocks. The old woman was proud too, but she was scared to death that the pet would get beaned or stepped on and killed. Bull finally convinced her that baseball was as safe as ridin’ in a rockin’-chair, and Martin was allowed to keep on with the only exercise he’d took in years, outside o’ puttin’ on his pyjamas at night and pullin’ ’em off in the mornin’.

Bull left Montgomery with the understandin’ that he could have his room when he come back in the fall. Maggie squeezed his hand when she told him goodbye, and that, Bull says, along with the post cards she sent him, was all that kept him alive that summer.

In June the Gregorys sent him a clippin’ from a Montgomery paper. Martin had been signed by the Montgomery club to play second base, and he looked like the best thing that had broke into the Southern League in years.

The second off-season that Bull spent with the Gregorys he was still too shy yet to make any play for the lady, outside o’ blowin’ all his loose change in showin’ she and her folks a time. But last fall, after they’d gave him his bit for workin’ in the big series, and he felt like he had enough financial backin’ to justify the plunge, he wired her to meet his train and he pulled his speech on her w’ile his nerve was still with him.

She didn’t say yes or she didn’t say no. She told him she liked him a whole lot bettern’n anybody except Brother Martin, and she appreciated his kindness to all o’ them, and so on. But it would take a lot o’ thinkin’ to decide the question, and could he wait? So he says he could do anything for her and they left it go at that.

As soon as they was off’n the subject, she begin to talk about Martin and what he’d been doin’ in baseball. She admitted that he was the greatest ball player south of Alaska, but o’ course the Montgomery club didn’t give him a fair show on account o’ bein’ jealous, and the manager kept him on the bench half the time for the fear some big league scout’d see him and steal him away from Montgomery. What she wanted Bull to do was tell some manager in our league about him, and have him bought. Martin would do the rest; he’d show ’em if he ever got the chance.

Well, Bull told her it was against the rules for an umps to recommend a ball player to a club in his own league. It wouldn’t be fair to the Boston club, for instance, if Bull give Detroit first whack at a second Cobb. O’ course Bull knowed that plenty o’ scouts must of saw Martin and passed him up, and that the Montgomery club wasn’t tryin’ to conceal a man for who they could get a big price.

She ast him if he couldn’t get some friend to do the recommendin’ if he couldn’t do it himself. He told her he was scared his part in it would be found out. Then she says that he must care a lot about her if he was afraid to take a little risk like that. He told her he’d try and think of a way to swing it, but she must give him time.

He found Martin more of a dude than ever and as modest as a wrestler. He couldn’t talk about nothin’ but how much better he was than the Southern League, and it was easy to see from his clo’es that he wasn’t contributin’ nothin’ to the family except conversation and his personal attendance at meals.

Hatin’ yourself, though, ain’t nothin’ against a ball player. Take most any real star and when the dialogue ain’t about him he’s bored to death, and if he has a bad day, pitchin’ or hittin’ or whatever it is he does, it’s plain tough luck or rotten umpirin’.

So Bull didn’t think none the less o’ Martin’s ability on account o’ the size of his chest, even if he did get good an’ sick o’ hearin’ nothin’ but Martin, Martin, Martin, all day and half the night.

Bull would of gave anything if Maggie and the rest o’ them had forgot their scheme to land the pet in the big menagerie. But they wasn’t a chance. When he’d rather of been hearin’ that she cared somethin’ about him, she was eggin’ him on to hurry up and think of a way to bring Brother to the attention o’ the real people.

In December Bull read in the paper that Ted Pierce, the manager o’ the Montgomery club, was in town. He made a date to meet him and find out just how good Martin was.

“He’s just good enough to of pretty near drove me wild,” Ted told him. “If we’re ten runs ahead and he comes up with the bases full, he’ll hit one from here to Nashville. Or if we’re fifteen runs behind in the last half o’ the ninth, with two out, it’s fifty to one that he’ll get to first base. But put him up to that plate when everything depends on him and you’d think he had paralysis o’ the arms. He’ll take three in the groove and then holler murder at the umps.”

“Plain yellow, eh?” says Bull.

“I don’t like to say that about nobody,” Ted says. “But if the old U.S. called for volunteers, I’d bet on Benedict Arnold to beat him to the front.”

“Ain’t they no chance of him gettin’ over it?” ast Bull.

“I’ve tried everything,” says Ted. “I’ve called him all the names I could think of. I’ve tried to jolly him too; I’ve told him the pitchers was all scared of him and all he’d have to do was swing that club. But he’s just as bad as when he broke in.”

“He’s a kid yet,” says Bull. “It may be just stage fright.”

“It may be,” says Ted. “He certainly is cocky enough most o’ the time; it’s only in a pinch that he loses it.”

“I’m a friend of his family,” says Bull. “I’d like awful well to see him move up.”

“You wouldn’t like it no better’n me,” says Ted. “I’d like to see him move anywheres. I’m sick o’ lookin’ at him. If you can sell him for any kind of a price, I’ll give you half of it.”

“You know I couldn’t sell him,” says Bull. “But if somebody else recommended him to somebody and I was ast about him, I’d do my best.”

“Well,” says Ted, “I ain’t goin’ to recommend him nowheres, unless it’s to a fella I got no use for. I’m goin’ to try him again in the spring, and if he don’t quit chokin’ to death every time he’s got a chance to be a hero, I’ll tie a can on him whether he’s a friend o’ yours or Woodrow Wilson’s.”

“Outside o’ that, he’s a good ball player, is he?” says Bull.

“They ain’t no man I ever seen with more natural advantages,” Ted told him. “His record shows that he hit .329 and stole thirty-two bases and fielded as good as any second baseman in the league. But he didn’t make none o’ those base hits when we’d of gave a thousand dollars apiece for ’em, and when he could of pulled a pitcher out of a hole with a swell piece o’ fieldin’ he simply booted the ball all over the infield.”

“They’s just the one hope for him, then,” says Bull, “and that’s to go out and get some o’ the old nervine.”

“If you can make him do that,” says Ted, “I’ll guarantee to sell him to any club you name.”

So Bull, that night, told Maggie that Martin was still shy of experience and needed at least another year in minor league ball before he could hope to stick up with the E-light. He figured that he could work on the kid all the rest o’ the winter and maybe succeed in stingin’ him enough with hot conversation to get that streak out of him.

But Maggie right away wanted to know where Bull’d got his information and Bull had to tell her.

“No wonder!” says Maggie. “Pierce never did have a good word for him. Him and all the rest o’ them’s jealous.”

“You’re mistaken,” says Bull. “Pierce wouldn’t like nothin’ better than to sell him for a good price.”

“All right,” says Maggie, “if you think I’m mistaken, that shows you don’t care nothin’ about me.”

So Bull didn’t have no answer to that swell argument only to beg her pardon and say she was probably right.

Well, it finally come to a kind of a showdown: Bull was either to see that Martin got his chance this spring or he’d have to worry along without Maggie. She didn’t come right out and say that the way I’ve put it, but she made it plain enough so’s they wasn’t much chance to misunderstand.

Bull kicked the sheets round for a few nights and then got his idear. O’ course the first thing was to pick a club that was tryin’ to build up, and if possible to pick one that had a manager who’d pay the right kind of attention to a kid. Bull chose Connie as the best bet. The next thing was to persuade Connie to give Martin his trial. Bull wanted to be perfectly square, as you’ll see by the deal he put through. He got a fella there in Montgomery with a good Irish name to write to Connie and recommend the boy, and if Connie didn’t believe Martin was a good prospect he was to ask Bull about him, and if Martin didn’t make good he wouldn’t cost Connie nothin’, not even his railroad fare to the trainin’ camp and back. Bull framed it up with Ted Pierce as a matter o’ friendship to leave the boy go on trial, and if he did su’prise ’em all and make good, the Montgomery club was to get whatever Connie was willin’ to pay.

Well, the letter was sent and Connie wrote back to Bull, and says a boy named Gregory had been mentioned to him, and ast Bull was he worth a trial. Bull answered that Gregory was a kid with great natural ability and one or two faults that’d have to be overcome. Then Connie fixed it with the Montgomery club, and Bull thought he’d finished his job.

But he found out different. W’ile Maggie consented to becomin’ engaged, she wasn’t in no hurry to get married. She says her parents was gettin’ old and she didn’t want to leave ’em all summer, and besides, she didn’t have no clo’es, and besides, it would be a whole lot nicer to wait till fall and spend the honeymoon where they’d first met each other and when Bull was just startin’ his vacation instead of endin’ it. Bull coaxed and coaxed, but her rules was just like his’n⁠—she couldn’t change a decision on a question o’ judgment.

In the three weeks before Martin was to report in Jacksonville, Bull done nothin’ but try and shoot him full o’ confidence.

“The pitchers down here have got everything you’ll see in the big league,” he told him. “You don’t need to be afraid o’ none o’ them. A man that handles a bat the way you do can hit anything in the world if he’ll just swing. Connie or any other manager don’t care how many times you strike out in the pinch, provided you strike out tryin’. You got the stuff in you to make Cobb and Baker and them look like a rummy. Don’t get scared; that’s all.”

Bull pulled that talk on him right up to the day the kid left Montgomery. Down at the train, Bull says to him:

“Remember, they’s nothin’ to be scared of. Make us all proud o’ you! Make good!”

“I’ll make good if they give me a square deal,” he says.

“Yes,” Bull says to himself, “it’s a cinch it’ll be somebody else’s fault if he falls down. It always is.”

Well, in a little w’ile it come time for Bull to leave too. And here’s what the girl sprung on him at the partin’:

“You’ll help him all you can, won’t you?” she says.

“They’s not a chance for me to help him,” says Bull. “A man in my place can’t favor nobody.”

“A man could,” she says, “if a man knowed it would please the girl he was stuck on.”

Now if it’d of been me that she made that remark to, I’d of ast for waivers. But you know what they say about love bein’ blind. And when it’s a combination o’ love and an umpire⁠—well, how can you beat it!

Bull kept close tab on the papers and he seen that Martin was at second base in the lineup o’ the Ath-a-letics’ regular club. This was w’ile they was still South. Then, in one o’ their last exhibitions before the season started, Martin’s name was left out. He wrote to the kid and he wrote to Maggie, tryin’ to find out what was doin’. Maggie wrote back that she didn’t know and Martin didn’t answer at all.

The season begin and Bull was workin’ in the West. Every mornin’ he grabbed the papers and looked to see if Martin was back in. Four times in three weeks the kid went up to bat for somebody, but without doin’ no good. Then come the second week in this month and the first series between the Eastern clubs and us.

Bull had the Detroit⁠–⁠Philadelphia series. Just before the first game he run into Connie outside o’ the park. They shook hands and then Bull says:

“Didn’t you ask me about a ball player this winter?”

“Yes,” says Connie, “a boy named Gregory.”

“How’s he comin’?” says Bull.

“I don’t think he’s comin’,” says Connie. “I think he’s just gettin’ ready to go.”

“What’s the trouble?” ast Bull.

“Well,” says Connie, “once in a w’ile our club happens to not be more’n two or three runs behind, happens to have a chance to tie or win. Gregory’s one o’ the kind o’ ball players that spoils them chances. In practice down South he looked like a find. He hit everything and fielded all over the place. But we got into some tight exhibitions on the way up and when the opportunities come to him to do somethin’ big he faded away. He ain’t there in a pinch; that’s all.”

“Is he with you yet?” Bull ast him.

“He’s with us,” says Connie; “he’s with us for one more trial. If they’s a place in this series where I can use a substitute hitter, Gregory’s goin’ to be the man. And if he don’t swing that club the way he can swing it when it don’t mean nothin’, I’ll hand him his transportation back to Montgomery.”

“Does the kid know that?” ast Bull.

“Yes,” says Connie, “and if they’s any stuff in him the knowledge that this is his last chance should ought to bring it out.”

“You mean,” says Bull, “that if he strikes out again in a pinch he’s through?”

“No, I don’t,” says Connie. “I mean he’s through if he doesn’t try to murder that ball. I don’t care if he strikes out on three pitches, just so he swings.”

“But suppose,” says Bull⁠—“suppose they don’t throw him nothin’ he can hit; suppose they walk him.”

“O’ course,” says Connie, “if the count gets down to two and three, I’d want him to pass the ball up if it was bad. But if it was where he could reach it, I’d want him to take a wallop, just to show me he ain’t scared.”

So that’s how Martin stood with Connie at the beginnin’ o’ this series between the Ath-a-letics and Detroit.

The thing didn’t happen the first day. The game wasn’t close and Martin watched it all from the bench. Bull talked to him, but didn’t get what you could call a cordial welcome. Bull wasn’t su’prised at that; they ain’t no ball player that’ll kid with an umps when his dauber’s down. He refused Bull’s invitation to come round to the hotel that night and have supper with him. And Bull decided that the best play was to leave him alone.

They was a letter from the girl waitin’ for Bull that evenin’. She’d heard from her brother and she knowed that he wasn’t burnin’ up the League; but he’d confessed that Connie hadn’t treated him good and the umpires had robbed him blind. She knew, she wrote, that Bull wouldn’t cheat him; if Bull really cared for her, he’d help him if he got a chance. And it would kill her and her father and mother besides if Martin had to face the disgrace o’ not makin’ good.

Bull went to bed and dreamt that Martin was up in a pinch, and he was umpirin’ behind the plate, and Martin turned round and looked at him just before the ball was pitched, and Bull smiled at him to encourage him, and Martin took an awful wallop at the pill and give it a ride to the fence in right center. That’s what Bull dreamt before the second game o’ that series. And here’s what really come off:

Big Coveleskie and Bush was havin’ a whale of a battle. They wasn’t nobody scored till the eighth. Cobb got on then, with only one out. So that give Detroit a run. The ninth looked to be all over. Two o’ the Ath-a-letics was out. Then somebody got hold o’ one and lit on it for three bases, and what was left o’ the crowd decided to stick round a w’ile.

Bull says he knowed Martin was comin’ up before he ever looked. And he smiled at him when he announced himself as the batter.

Coveleskie come with a fast ball. Martin had to duck to keep from gettin’ hit. Coveleskie come with a curve. Martin made a feeble swing and missed it. Jennin’s hollered from the bench:

“Run out with the water! The boy’s goin’ to swoon!”

Another curve ball that broke over, and Martin left it go.

“Strike two!” says Bull.

“It was inside,” says Martin.

“You’ll never drive in that run with a base on balls,” says Bull.

Coveleskie come with a curve that was high and outside. It was the second ball. He come with another curve, in the same spot. It was three and two.

“Give him all you got!” yelled Jennin’s. “Get it over there! He’s too scared to swing!”

Bull told me that w’ile Coveleskie was gettin’ ready for that next pitch he could see Maggie and the old folks in front of him just as plain as if they was there, and a voice kept sayin’ to him, “Call it a ball! Call it a ball!”

The ball come⁠—a fast one. Bull knowed what it was and where it was comin’, and he bit his tongue to keep from sayin’ “Swing!” Right across the middle it come, as perfect a strike as was ever pitched. And Martin’s bat stayed on his shoulder.

“You’re out!” says Bull. “It cut the heart!”

The heart o’ the plate, and Bull’s too, I guess.

Bull met Connie again next day, outside o’ the park.

“I’ve canned your friend Gregory,” says Connie.

“Do you know,” says Bull, “I come near callin’ that last one a ball?”

“If you had,” says Connie, “the kid would of been let out anyway, and you’d of fell, in my estimation, from the best umpire in the league to the worst in the world.”

Now what does dear little Brother Martin do next? Instead o’ goin’ back to Montgomery like a man and tryin’ to get a fresh start with the club that he’d been borrowed off of, he sets down and writes Maggie that Connie would of kept him only for Bull callin’ him out on a ball that was so low and so far outside that the Detroit catcher had to lay down to get it, and that Bull done it because he didn’t like him, and if Maggie didn’t tie a can to Bull, Martin was through with her and with the old man and old lady too.

Well, the girl wrote back to Bull callin’ off the engagement, sayin’ how sorry her and her parents was to find out that he would stoop to such meanness and askin’ him not to communicate with her no more. And Bull’s bullheaded enough so as he wouldn’t make a move to square things.

He got that letter from her day before yesterday, just before he left his hotel to come out to the yard. Is it any wonder he didn’t say nothin’ when I claimed Cady didn’t tag me, and went entirely off’n his nut when Cahill called him a crook?

W’ile he was spillin’ me the story I got enough into him to make a good sleepin’ potion, and then helped him to the hay. The first thing yesterday mornin’ I seen Ban and fixed that end of it by repeatin’ the romance. But don’t never breathe that Ban knows all about it. Bull thinks he’s takin’ him back because it was his first offense. And he’s comin’ back; Ban says he’s promised to be in there tomorrow.

And right here in my pocket I got somethin’ to show him that’ll be better news than gettin’ back his job. As luck would have it, I was the first guy to get to the park yesterday, and when I blowed into the clubhouse, who was settin’ there but young Mr. Gregory himself! He told me his name and wanted to know was they any chance of him gettin’ a tryout with us?

“Yes,” I says, “they’s one chance and you’ll get it if you do as I say. Connie couldn’t of gave you to the Montgomery club again if we hadn’t waived. But I’ll fix it for you to join us tomorrow and try your luck again on these conditions: In the first place, you got to go right out now and wire your sister and tell her that the ball you was called out on was right through the middle o’ the plate and the best strike you ever seen, and that Connie would of released you anyway, and that if your sister don’t wire right back to Bull, in my care, statin’ that she’s reconsidered and it’s still on between she and him, you won’t never recognize her as your sister.”

“And what if I won’t do that?” he says.

“You won’t get no chance at a job here,” says I, “but you’ll get the worst lickin’ that was ever gave.”

He sent the telegram and I got a night letter this mornin’; addressed to Bull it was, but I read it. I’ve been tryin’ to locate him all day and he’s goin’ to call up as soon as he gets back to his hotel. Everything’s fixed and tomorrow he’ll feel so good that he’s liable to forget himself and give us somethin’ but the worst of it.

As for Martin, if he don’t make good with our club it’ll be because he can’t hit and not because he’s too scared to try. I’ll have him too scared o’ me to be scared of anything else.

Champion

Midge Kelly scored his first knockout when he was seventeen. The knockee was his brother Connie, three years his junior and a cripple. The purse was a half dollar given to the younger Kelly by a lady whose electric had just missed bumping his soul from his frail little body.

Connie did not know Midge was in the house, else he never would have risked laying the prize on the arm of the least comfortable chair in the room, the better to observe its shining beauty. As Midge entered from the kitchen, the crippled boy covered the coin with his hand, but the movement lacked the speed requisite to escape his brother’s quick eye.

“Watcha got there?” demanded Midge.

“Nothin’,” said Connie.

“You’re a one legged liar!” said Midge.

He strode over to his brother’s chair and grasped the hand that concealed the coin.

“Let loose!” he ordered.

Connie began to cry.

“Let loose and shut up your noise,” said the elder, and jerked his brother’s hand from the chair arm.

The coin fell onto the bare floor. Midge pounced on it. His weak mouth widened in a triumphant smile.

“Nothin’, huh?” he said. “All right, if it’s nothin’ you don’t want it.”

“Give that back,” sobbed the younger.

“I’ll give you a red nose, you little sneak! Where’d you steal it?”

“I didn’t steal it. It’s mine. A lady give it to me after she pretty near hit me with a car.”

“It’s a crime she missed you,” said Midge.

Midge started for the front door. The cripple picked up his crutch, rose from his chair with difficulty, and, still sobbing, came toward Midge. The latter heard him and stopped.

“You better stay where you’re at,” he said.

“I want my money,” cried the boy.

“I know what you want,” said Midge.

Doubling up the fist that held the half dollar, he landed with all his strength on his brother’s mouth. Connie fell to the floor with a thud, the crutch tumbling on top of him. Midge stood beside the prostrate form.

“Is that enough?” he said. “Or do you want this, too?”

And he kicked him in the crippled leg.

“I guess that’ll hold you,” he said.

There was no response from the boy on the floor. Midge looked at him a moment, then at the coin in his hand, and then went out into the street, whistling.

An hour later, when Mrs. Kelly came home from her day’s work at Faulkner’s Steam Laundry, she found Connie on the floor, moaning. Dropping on her knees beside him, she called him by name a score of times. Then she got up and, pale as a ghost, dashed from the house. Dr. Ryan left the Kelly abode about dusk and walked toward Halsted Street. Mrs. Dorgan spied him as he passed her gate.

“Who’s sick, Doctor?” she called.

“Poor little Connie,” he replied. “He had a bad fall.”

“How did it happen?”

“I can’t say for sure, Margaret, but I’d almost bet he was knocked down.”

“Knocked down!” exclaimed Mrs. Dorgan.

“Why, who⁠—?”

“Have you seen the other one lately?”

“Michael? No, not since mornin’. You can’t be thinkin’⁠—”

“I wouldn’t put it past him, Margaret,” said the doctor gravely. “The lad’s mouth is swollen and cut, and his poor, skinny little leg is bruised. He surely didn’t do it to himself and I think Helen suspects the other one.”

“Lord save us!” said Mrs. Dorgan. “I’ll run over and see if I can help.”

“That’s a good woman,” said Doctor Ryan, and went on down the street.

Near midnight, when Midge came home, his mother was sitting at Connie’s bedside. She did not look up.

“Well,” said Midge, “what’s the matter?”

She remained silent. Midge repeated his question.

“Michael, you know what’s the matter,” she said at length.

“I don’t know nothin’,” said Midge.

“Don’t lie to me, Michael. What did you do to your brother?”

“Nothin’.”

“You hit him.”

“Well, then, I hit him. What of it? It ain’t the first time.”

Her lips pressed tightly together, her face like chalk, Ellen Kelly rose from her chair and made straight for him. Midge backed against the door.

“Lay off’n me, Ma. I don’t want to fight no woman.”

Still she came on breathing heavily.

“Stop where you’re at, Ma,” he warned.

There was a brief struggle and Midge’s mother lay on the floor before him.

“You ain’t hurt, Ma. You’re lucky I didn’t land good. And I told you to lay off’n me.”

“God forgive you, Michael!”

Midge found Hap Collins in the showdown game at the Royal.

“Come on out a minute,” he said.

Hap followed him out on the walk.

“I’m leavin’ town for a w’ile,” said Midge.

“What for?”

“Well, we had a little run-in up to the house. The kid stole a half buck off’n me, and when I went after it he cracked me with his crutch. So I nailed him. And the old lady came at me with a chair and I took it off’n her and she fell down.”

“How is Connie hurt?”

“Not bad.”

“What are you runnin’ away for?”

“Who the hell said I was runnin’ away? I’m sick and tired o’ gettin’ picked on; that’s all. So I’m leavin’ for a w’ile and I want a piece o’ money.”

“I ain’t only got six bits,” said Happy.

“You’re in bad shape, ain’t you? Well, come through with it.”

Happy came through.

“You oughtn’t to hit the kid,” he said.

“I ain’t astin’ you who can I hit,” snarled Midge. “You try to put somethin’ over on me and you’ll get the same dose. I’m goin’ now.”

“Go as far as you like,” said Happy, but not until he was sure that Kelly was out of hearing.

Early the following morning, Midge boarded a train for Milwaukee. He had no ticket, but no one knew the difference. The conductor remained in the caboose.

On a night six months later, Midge hurried out of the “stage door” of the Star Boxing Club and made for Duane’s saloon, two blocks away. In his pocket were twelve dollars, his reward for having battered up one Demon Dempsey through the six rounds of the first preliminary.

It was Midge’s first professional engagement in the manly art. Also it was the first time in weeks that he had earned twelve dollars.

On the way to Duane’s he had to pass Niemann’s. He pulled his cap over his eyes and increased his pace until he had gone by. Inside Niemann’s stood a trusting bartender, who for ten days had staked Midge to drinks and allowed him to ravage the lunch on a promise to come in and settle the moment he was paid for the prelim.

Midge strode into Duane’s and aroused the napping bartender by slapping a silver dollar on the festive board.

“Gimme a shot,” said Midge.

The shooting continued until the windup at the Star was over and part of the fight crowd joined Midge in front of Duane’s bar. A youth in the early twenties, standing next to young Kelly, finally summoned sufficient courage to address him.

“Wasn’t you in the first bout?” he ventured.

“Yeh,” Midge replied.

“My name’s Hersch,” said the other.

Midge received the startling information in silence.

“I don’t want to butt in,” continued Mr. Hersch, “but I’d like to buy you a drink.”

“All right,” said Midge, “but don’t overstrain yourself.”

Mr. Hersch laughed uproariously and beckoned to the bartender.

“You certainly gave that wop a trimmin’ tonight,” said the buyer of the drink, when they had been served. “I thought you’d kill him.”

“I would if I hadn’t let up,” Midge replied. “I’ll kill ’em all.”

“You got the wallop all right,” the other said admiringly.

“Have I got the wallop?” said Midge. “Say, I can kick like a mule. Did you notice them muscles in my shoulders?”

“Notice ’em? I couldn’t help from noticin’ ’em,” said Hersch. “I says to the fella settin’ alongside o’ me, I says: ‘Look at them shoulders! No wonder he can hit,’ I says to him.”

“Just let me land and it’s goodbye, baby,” said Midge. “I’ll kill ’em all.”

The oral manslaughter continued until Duane’s closed for the night. At parting, Midge and his new friend shook hands and arranged for a meeting the following evening.

For nearly a week the two were together almost constantly. It was Hersch’s pleasant role to listen to Midge’s modest revelations concerning himself, and to buy every time Midge’s glass was empty. But there came an evening when Hersch regretfully announced that he must go home to supper.

“I got a date for eight bells,” he confided. “I could stick till then, only I must clean up and put on the Sunday clo’es, ’cause she’s the prettiest little thing in Milwaukee.”

“Can’t you fix it for two?” asked Midge.

“I don’t know who to get,” Hersch replied. “Wait, though. I got a sister and if she ain’t busy, it’ll be OK. She’s no bum for looks herself.”

So it came about that Midge and Emma Hersch and Emma’s brother and the prettiest little thing in Milwaukee foregathered at Wall’s and danced half the night away. And Midge and Emma danced every dance together, for though every little onestep seemed to induce a new thirst of its own, Lou Hersch stayed too sober to dance with his own sister.

The next day, penniless at last in spite of his phenomenal ability to make someone else settle, Midge Kelly sought out Doc Hammond, matchmaker for the Star, and asked to be booked for the next show.

“I could put you on with Tracy for the next bout,” said Doc.

“What’s they in it?” asked Midge.

“Twenty if you cop,” Doc told him.

“Have a heart,” protested Midge. “Didn’t I look good the other night?”

“You looked all right. But you aren’t Freddie Welsh yet by a consid’able margin.”

“I ain’t scared of Freddie Welsh or none of ’em,” said Midge.

“Well, we don’t pay our boxers by the size of their chests,” Doc said. “I’m offerin’ you this Tracy bout. Take it or leave it.”

“All right; I’m on,” said Midge, and he passed a pleasant afternoon at Duane’s on the strength of his booking.

Young Tracy’s manager came to Midge the night before the show.

“How do you feel about this go?” he asked.

“Me?” said Midge, “I feel all right. What do you mean, how do I feel?”

“I mean,” said Tracy’s manager, “that we’re mighty anxious to win, ’cause the boy’s got a chanct in Philly if he cops this one.”

“What’s your proposition?” asked Midge.

“Fifty bucks,” said Tracy’s manager.

“What do you think I am, a crook? Me lay down for fifty bucks. Not me!”

“Seventy-five, then,” said Tracy’s manager.

The market closed on eighty and the details were agreed on in short order. And the next night Midge was stopped in the second round by a terrific slap on the forearm.

This time Midge passed up both Niemann’s and Duane’s, having a sizable account at each place, and sought his refreshment at Stein’s farther down the street.

When the profits of his deal with Tracy were gone, he learned, by firsthand information from Doc Hammond and the matchmakers at the other “clubs,” that he was no longer desired for even the cheapest of preliminaries. There was no danger of his starving or dying of thirst while Emma and Lou Hersch lived. But he made up his mind, four months after his defeat by Young Tracy, that Milwaukee was not the ideal place for him to live.

“I can lick the best of ’em,” he reasoned, “but there ain’t no more chanct for me here. I can maybe go east and get on somewheres. And besides⁠—”

But just after Midge had purchased a ticket to Chicago with the money he had “borrowed” from Emma Hersch “to buy shoes,” a heavy hand was laid on his shoulders and he turned to face two strangers.

“Where are you goin’, Kelly?” inquired the owner of the heavy hand.

“Nowheres,” said Midge. “What the hell do you care?”

The other stranger spoke:

“Kelly, I’m employed by Emma Hersch’s mother to see that you do right by her. And we want you to stay here till you’ve done it.”

“You won’t get nothin’ but the worst of it, monkeying with me,” said Midge.

Nevertheless, he did not depart for Chicago that night. Two days later, Emma Hersch became Mrs. Kelly, and the gift of the groom, when once they were alone, was a crushing blow on the bride’s pale cheek.

Next morning, Midge left Milwaukee as he had entered it⁠—by fast freight.

“They’s no use kiddin’ ourself anymore,” said Tommy Haley. “He might get down to thirty-seven in a pinch, but if he done below that a mouse could stop him. He’s a welter; that’s what he is and he knows it as well as I do. He’s growed like a weed in the last six mont’s. I told him, I says, ‘If you don’t quit growin’ they won’t be nobody for you to box, only Willard and them.’ He says, ‘Well, I wouldn’t run away from Willard if I weighed twenty pounds more.’ ”

“He must hate himself,” said Tommy’s brother.

“I never seen a good one that didn’t,” said Tommy. “And Midge is a good one; don’t make no mistake about that. I wisht we could of got Welsh before the kid growed so big. But it’s too late now. I won’t make no holler, though, if we can match him up with the Dutchman.”

“Who do you mean?”

“Young Goetz, the welter champ. We mightn’t not get so much dough for the bout itself, but it’d roll in afterward. What a drawin’ card we’d be, ’cause the people pays their money to see the fella with the wallop, and that’s Midge. And we’d keep the title just as long as Midge could make the weight.”

“Can’t you land no match with Goetz?”

“Sure, ’cause he needs the money. But I’ve went careful with the kid so far and look at the results I got! So what’s the use of takin’ a chanct? The kid’s comin’ every minute and Goetz is goin’ back faster’n big Johnson did. I think we could lick him now; I’d bet my life on it. But six mont’s from now they won’t be no risk. He’ll of licked hisself before that time. Then all as we’ll have to do is sign up with him and wait for the referee to stop it. But Midge is so crazy to get at him now that I can’t hardly hold him back.”

The brothers Haley were lunching in a Boston hotel. Dan had come down from Holyoke to visit with Tommy and to watch the latter’s protégé go twelve rounds, or less, with Bud Cross. The bout promised little in the way of a contest, for Midge had twice stopped the Baltimore youth and Bud’s reputation for gameness was all that had earned him the date. The fans were willing to pay the price to see Midge’s haymaking left, but they wanted to see it used on an opponent who would not jump out of the ring the first time he felt its crushing force. But Cross was such an opponent, and his willingness to stop boxing-gloves with his eyes, ears, nose and throat had long enabled him to escape the horrors of honest labor. A game boy was Bud, and he showed it in his battered, swollen, discolored face.

“I should think,” said Dan Haley, “that the kid’d do whatever you tell him after all you done for him.”

“Well,” said Tommy, “he’s took my dope pretty straight so far, but he’s so sure of hisself that he can’t see no reason for waitin’. He’ll do what I say, though; he’d be a sucker not to.”

“You got a contrac’ with him?”

“No, I don’t need no contrac’. He knows it was me that drug him out o’ the gutter and he ain’t goin’ to turn me down now, when he’s got the dough and bound to get more. Where’d he of been at if I hadn’t listened to him when he first come to me? That’s pretty near two years ago now, but it seems like last week. I was settin’ in the s’loon acrost from the Pleasant Club in Philly, waitin’ for McCann to count the dough and come over, when this little bum blowed in and tried to stand the house off for a drink. They told him nothin’ doin’ and to beat it out o’ there, and then he seen me and come over to where I was settin’ and ast me wasn’t I a boxin’ man and I told him who I was. Then he ast me for money to buy a shot and I told him to set down and I’d buy it for him.

“Then we got talkin’ things over and he told me his name and told me about fightn’ a couple o’ prelims out to Milwaukee. So I says, ‘Well, boy, I don’t know how good or how rotten you are, but you won’t never get nowheres trainin’ on that stuff.’ So he says he’d cut it out if he could get on in a bout and I says I would give him a chanct if he played square with me and didn’t touch no more to drink. So we shook hands and I took him up to the hotel with me and give him a bath and the next day I bought him some clo’es. And I staked him to eats and sleeps for over six weeks. He had a hard time breakin’ away from the polish, but finally I thought he was fit and I give him his chanct. He went on with Smiley Sayer and stopped him so quick that Smiley thought sure he was poisoned.

“Well, you know what he’s did since. The only beatin’ in his record was by Tracy in Milwaukee before I got hold of him, and he’s licked Tracy three times in the last year.

“I’ve gave him all the best of it in a money way and he’s got seven thousand bucks in cold storage. How’s that for a kid that was in the gutter two years ago? And he’d have still more yet if he wasn’t so nuts over clo’es and got to stop at the good hotels and so forth.”

“Where’s his home at?”

“Well, he ain’t really got no home. He came from Chicago and his mother canned him out o’ the house for bein’ no good. She give him a raw deal, I guess, and he says he won’t have nothin’ to do with her unlest she comes to him first. She’s got a pile o’ money, he says, so he ain’t worryin’ about her.”

The gentleman under discussion entered the café and swaggered to Tommy’s table, while the whole room turned to look.

Midge was the picture of health despite a slightly colored eye and an ear that seemed to have no opening. But perhaps it was not his healthiness that drew all eyes. His diamond horseshoe tie pin, his purple cross-striped shirt, his orange shoes and his light blue suit fairly screamed for attention.

“Where you been?” he asked Tommy. “I been lookin’ all over for you.”

“Set down,” said his manager.

“No time,” said Midge. “I’m goin’ down to the w’arf and see ’em unload the fish.”

“Shake hands with my brother Dan,” said Tommy.

Midge shook with the Holyoke Haley.

“If you’re Tommy’s brother, you’re OK with me,” said Midge, and the brothers beamed with pleasure.

Dan moistened his lips and murmured an embarrassed reply, but it was lost on the young gladiator.

“Leave me take twenty,” Midge was saying. “I prob’ly won’t need it, but I don’t like to be caught short.”

Tommy parted with a twenty dollar bill and recorded the transaction in a small black book the insurance company had given him for Christmas.

“But,” he said, “it won’t cost you no twenty to look at them fish. Want me to go along?”

“No,” said Midge hastily. “You and your brother here prob’ly got a lot to say to each other.”

“Well,” said Tommy, “don’t take no bad money and don’t get lost. And you better be back at four o’clock and lay down a w’ile.”

“I don’t need no rest to beat this guy,” said Midge. “He’ll do enough layin’ down for the both of us.”

And laughing even more than the jest called for, he strode out through the fire of admiring and startled glances.

The corner of Boylston and Tremont was the nearest Midge got to the wharf, but the lady awaiting him was doubtless a more dazzling sight than the catch of the luckiest Massachusetts fisherman. She could talk, too⁠—probably better than the fish.

“O you Kid!” she said, flashing a few silver teeth among the gold. “O you fighting man!”

Midge smiled up at her.

“We’ll go somewheres and get a drink,” he said. “One won’t hurt.”

In New Orleans, five months after he had rearranged the map of Bud Cross for the third time, Midge finished training for his championship bout with the Dutchman.

Back in his hotel after the final workout, Midge stopped to chat with some of the boys from up north, who had made the long trip to see a champion dethroned, for the result of this bout was so nearly a foregone conclusion that even the experts had guessed it.

Tommy Haley secured the key and the mail and ascended to the Kelly suite. He was bathing when Midge came in, half an hour later.

“Any mail?” asked Midge.

“There on the bed,” replied Tommy from the tub.

Midge picked up the stack of letters and postcards and glanced them over. From the pile he sorted out three letters and laid them on the table. The rest he tossed into the wastebasket. Then he picked up the three and sat for a few moments holding them, while his eyes gazed off into space. At length he looked again at the three unopened letters in his hand; then he put one in his pocket and tossed the other two at the basket. They missed their target and fell on the floor.

“Hell!” said Midge, and stooping over picked them up.

He opened one postmarked Milwaukee and read:

Dear Husband:

I have wrote to you so manny times and got no anser and I dont know if you ever got them, so I am writeing again in the hopes you will get this letter and anser. I dont like to bother you with my trubles and I would not only for the baby and I am not asking you should write to me but only send a little money and I am not asking for myself but the baby has not been well a day sence last Aug. and the dr. told me she cant live much longer unless I give her better food and thats impossible the way things are. Lou has not been working for a year and what I make dont hardley pay for the rent. I am not asking for you to give me any money, but only you should send what I loaned when convenient and I think it amts. to about $36.00. Please try and send that amt. and it will help me, but if you cant send the whole amt. try and send me something.

Midge tore the letter into a hundred pieces and scattered them over the floor.

“Money, money, money!” he said. “They must think I’m made o’ money. I s’pose the old woman’s after it too.”

He opened his mother’s letter:

dear Michael Connie wonted me to rite and say you must beet the dutchman and he is sur you will and wonted me to say we wont you to rite and tell us about it, but I gess you havent no time to rite or we herd from you long beffore this but I wish you would rite jest a line or 2 boy becaus it wuld be better for Connie then a barl of medisin. It wuld help me to keep things going if you send me money now and then when you can spair it but if you cant send no money try and fine time to rite a letter onley a few lines and it will please Connie. jest think boy he hasent got out of bed in over 3 yrs. Connie says good luck.

“I thought so,” said Midge. “They’re all alike.”

The third letter was from New York. It read:

Hon:⁠—This is the last letter you will get from me before your champ, but I will send you a telegram Saturday, but I can’t say as much in a telegram as in a letter and I am writeing this to let you know I am thinking of you and praying for good luck.

Lick him good hon and don’t wait no longer than you have to and don’t forget to wire me as soon as its over. Give him that little old left of yours on the nose hon and don’t be afraid of spoiling his good looks because he couldn’t be no homlier than he is. But don’t let him spoil my baby’s pretty face. You won’t will you hon.

Well hon I would give anything to be there and see it, but I guess you love Haley better than me or you wouldn’t let him keep me away. But when your champ hon we can do as we please and tell Haley to go to the devil.

Well hon I will send you a telegram Saturday and I almost forgot to tell you I will need some more money, a couple hundred say and you will have to wire it to me as soon as you get this. You will won’t you hon.

I will send you a telegram Saturday and remember hon I am pulling for you.

Well goodbye sweetheart and good luck.

“They’re all alike,” said Midge. “Money, money, money.”

Tommy Haley, shining from his ablutions, came in from the adjoining room.

“Thought you’d be layin’ down,” he said.

“I’m goin’ to,” said Midge, unbuttoning his orange shoes.

“I’ll call you at six and you can eat up here without no bugs to pester you. I got to go down and give them birds their tickets.”

“Did you hear from Goldberg?” asked Midge.

“Didn’t I tell you? Sure; fifteen weeks at five hundred, if we win. And we can get a guarantee o’ twelve thousand, with privileges either in New York or Milwaukee.”

“Who with?”

“Anybody that’ll stand up in front of you. You don’t care who it is, do you?”

“Not me. I’ll make ’em all look like a monkey.”

“Well you better lay down aw’ile.”

“Oh, say, wire two hundred to Grace for me, will you? Right away; the New York address.”

“Two hundred! You just sent her three hundred last Sunday.”

“Well, what the hell do you care?”

“All right, all right. Don’t get sore about it. Anything else?”

“That’s all,” said Midge, and dropped onto the bed.

“And I want the deed done before I come back,” said Grace as she rose from the table. “You won’t fall down on me, will you, hon?”

“Leave it to me,” said Midge. “And don’t spend no more than you have to.”

Grace smiled a farewell and left the café. Midge continued to sip his coffee and read his paper.

They were in Chicago and they were in the middle of Midge’s first week in vaudeville. He had come straight north to reap the rewards of his glorious victory over the broken down Dutchman. A fortnight had been spent in learning his act, which consisted of a gymnastic exhibition and a ten minutes’ monologue on the various excellences of Midge Kelly. And now he was twice daily turning ’em away from the Madison Theater.

His breakfast over and his paper read, Midge sauntered into the lobby and asked for his key. He then beckoned to a bellboy, who had been hoping for that very honor.

“Find Haley, Tommy Haley,” said Midge. “Tell him to come up to my room.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Kelly,” said the boy, and proceeded to break all his former records for diligence.

Midge was looking out of his seventh-story window when Tommy answered the summons.

“What’ll it be?” inquired his manager.

There was a pause before Midge replied.

“Haley,” he said, “twenty-five percent’s a whole lot o’ money.”

“I guess I got it comin’, ain’t I?” said Tommy.

“I don’t see how you figger it. I don’t see where you’re worth it to me.”

“Well,” said Tommy, “I didn’t expect nothin’ like this. I thought you was satisfied with the bargain. I don’t want to beat nobody out o’ nothin’, but I don’t see where you could have got anybody else that would of did all I done for you.”

“Sure, that’s all right,” said the champion. “You done a lot for me in Philly. And you got good money for it, didn’t you?”

“I ain’t makin’ no holler. Still and all, the big money’s still ahead of us yet. And if it hadn’t of been for me, you wouldn’t of never got within grabbin’ distance.”

“Oh, I guess I could of went along all right,” said Midge. “Who was it that hung that left on the Dutchman’s jaw, me or you?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t been in the ring with the Dutchman if it wasn’t for how I handled you.”

“Well, this won’t get us nowheres. The idear is that you ain’t worth no twenty-five percent now and it don’t make no diff’rence what come off a year or two ago.”

“Don’t it?” said Tommy. “I’d say it made a whole lot of diference.”

“Well, I say it don’t and I guess that settles it.”

“Look here, Midge,” Tommy said, “I thought I was fair with you, but if you don’t think so, I’m willin’ to hear what you think is fair. I don’t want nobody callin’ me a Sherlock. Let’s go down to business and sign up a contrac’. What’s your figger?”

“I ain’t namin’ no figger,” Midge replied. “I’m sayin’ that twenty-five’s too much. Now what are you willin’ to take?”

“How about twenty?”

“Twenty’s too much,” said Kelly.

“What ain’t too much?” asked Tommy.

“Well, Haley, I might as well give it to you straight. They ain’t nothin’ that ain’t too much.”

“You mean you don’t want me at no figger?”

“That’s the idear.”

There was a minute’s silence. Then Tommy Haley walked toward the door.

“Midge,” he said, in a choking voice, “you’re makin’ a big mistake, boy. You can’t throw down your best friends and get away with it. That damn woman will ruin you.”

Midge sprang from his seat.

“You shut your mouth!” he stormed. “Get out o’ here before they have to carry you out. You been spongin’ off o’ me long enough. Say one more word about the girl or about anything else and you’ll get what the Dutchman got. Now get out!”

And Tommy Haley, having a very vivid memory of the Dutchman’s face as he fell, got out.

Grace came in later, dropped her numerous bundles on the lounge and perched herself on the arm of Midge’s chair.

“Well?” she said.

“Well,” said Midge, “I got rid of him.”

“Good boy!” said Grace. “And now I think you might give me that twenty-five percent.”

“Besides the seventy-five you’re already gettin’?” said Midge.

“Don’t be no grouch, hon. You don’t look pretty when you’re grouchy.”

“It ain’t my business to look pretty,” Midge replied.

“Wait till you see how I look with the stuff I bought this mornin’!”

Midge glanced at the bundles on the lounge.

“There’s Haley’s twenty-five percent,” he said, “and then some.”

The champion did not remain long without a manager. Haley’s successor was none other than Jerome Harris, who saw in Midge a better meal ticket than his popular-priced musical show had been.

The contract, giving Mr. Harris twenty-five percent of Midge’s earnings, was signed in Detroit the week after Tommy Haley had heard his dismissal read. It had taken Midge just six days to learn that a popular actor cannot get on without the ministrations of a man who thinks, talks and means business. At first Grace objected to the new member of the firm, but when Mr. Harris had demanded and secured from the vaudeville people a one-hundred dollar increase in Midge’s weekly stipend, she was convinced that the champion had acted for the best.

“You and my missus will have some great old times,” Harris told Grace. “I’d of wired her to join us here, only I seen the Kid’s bookin’ takes us to Milwaukee next week, and that’s where she is.”

But when they were introduced in the Milwaukee hotel, Grace admitted to herself that her feeling for Mrs. Harris could hardly be called love at first sight. Midge, on the contrary, gave his new manager’s wife the many times over and seemed loath to end the feast of his eyes.

“Some doll,” he said to Grace when they were alone.

“Doll is right,” the lady replied, “and sawdust where her brains ought to be.”

“I’m li’ble to steal that baby,” said Midge, and he smiled as he noted the effect of his words on his audience’s face.

On Tuesday of the Milwaukee week the champion successfully defended his title in a bout that the newspapers never reported. Midge was alone in his room that morning when a visitor entered without knocking. The visitor was Lou Hersch.

Midge turned white at sight of him.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I guess you know,” said Lou Hersch. “Your wife’s starvin’ to death and your baby’s starvin’ to death and I’m starvin’ to death. And you’re dirty with money.”

“Listen,” said Midge, “if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t never saw your sister. And, if you ain’t man enough to hold a job, what’s that to me? The best thing you can do is keep away from me.”

“You give me a piece o’ money and I’ll go.”

Midge’s reply to the ultimatum was a straight right to his brother-in-law’s narrow chest.

“Take that home to your sister.”

And after Lou Hersch had picked himself up and slunk away, Midge thought: “It’s lucky I didn’t give him my left or I’d of croaked him. And if I’d hit him in the stomach, I’d of broke his spine.”

There was a party after each evening performance during the Milwaukee engagement. The wine flowed freely and Midge had more of it than Tommy Haley ever would have permitted him. Mr. Harris offered no objection, which was possibly just as well for his own physical comfort.

In the dancing between drinks, Midge had his new manager’s wife for a partner as often as Grace. The latter’s face as she floundered round in the arms of the portly Harris, belied her frequent protestations that she was having the time of her life.

Several times that week, Midge thought Grace was on the point of starting the quarrel he hoped to have. But it was not until Friday night that she accommodated. He and Mrs. Harris had disappeared after the matinée and when Grace saw him again at the close of the night show, she came to the point at once.

“What are you tryin’ to pull off?” she demanded.

“It’s none o’ your business, is it?” said Midge.

“You bet it’s my business; mine and Harris’s. You cut it short or you’ll find out.”

“Listen,” said Midge, “have you got a mortgage on me or somethin’? You talk like we was married.”

“We’re goin’ to be, too. And tomorrow’s as good a time as any.”

“Just about,” Midge said. “You got as much chanct o’ marryin’ me tomorrow as the next day or next year and that ain’t no chanct at all.”

“We’ll find out,” said Grace.

“You’re the one that’s got somethin’ to find out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m married already.”

“You lie!”

“You think so, do you? Well, s’pose you go to this here address and get acquainted with my missus.”

Midge scrawled a number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She stared at it unseeingly.

“Well,” said Midge, “I ain’t kiddin’ you. You go there and ask for Mrs. Michael Kelly, and if you don’t find her, I’ll marry you tomorrow before breakfast.”

Still Grace stared at the scrap of paper. To Midge it seemed an age before she spoke again.

“You lied to me all this w’ile.”

“You never ast me was I married. What’s more, what the hell diff’rence did it make to you? You got a split, didn’t you? Better’n fifty-fifty.”

He started away.

“Where you goin’?”

“I’m goin’ to meet Harris and his wife.”

“I’m goin’ with you. You’re not goin’ to shake me now.”

“Yes, I am, too,” said Midge quietly. “When I leave town tomorrow night, you’re going to stay here. And if I see where you’re goin’ to make a fuss, I’ll put you in a hospital where they’ll keep you quiet. You can get your stuff tomorrow mornin’ and I’ll slip you a hundred bucks. And then I don’t want to see no more o’ you. And don’t try and tag along now or I’ll have to add another K.O. to the old record.”

When Grace returned to the hotel that night, she discovered that Midge and the Harrises had moved to another. And when Midge left town the following night, he was again without a manager, and Mr. Harris was without a wife.

Three days prior to Midge Kelly’s ten-round bout with Young Milton in New York City, the sporting editor of The News assigned Joe Morgan to write two or three thousand words about the champion to run with a picture layout for Sunday.

Joe Morgan dropped in at Midge’s training quarters Friday afternoon. Midge, he learned, was doing road work, but Midge’s manager, Wallie Adams, stood ready and willing to supply reams of dope about the greatest fighter of the age.

“Let’s hear what you’ve got,” said Joe, “and then I’ll try to fix up something.”

So Wallie stepped on the accelerator of his imagination and shot away.

“Just a kid; that’s all he is; a regular boy. Get what I mean? Don’t know the meanin’ o’ bad habits. Never tasted liquor in his life and would prob’bly get sick if he smelled it. Clean livin’ put him up where he’s at. Get what I mean? And modest and unassumin’ as a school girl. He’s so quiet you wouldn’t never know he was round. And he’d go to jail before he’d talk about himself.

“No job at all to get him in shape, ’cause he’s always that way. The only trouble we have with him is gettin’ him to light into these poor bums they match him up with. He’s scared he’ll hurt somebody. Get what I mean? He’s tickled to death over this match with Milton, ’cause everybody says Milton can stand the gaff. Midge’ll maybe be able to cut loose a little this time. But the last two bouts he had, the guys hadn’t no business in the ring with him, and he was holdin’ back all the w’ile for the fear he’d kill somebody. Get what I mean?”

“Is he married?” inquired Joe.

“Say, you’d think he was married to hear him rave about them kiddies he’s got. His fam’ly’s up in Canada to their summer home and Midge is wild to get up there with ’em. He thinks more o’ that wife and them kiddies than all the money in the world. Get what I mean?”

“How many children has he?”

“I don’t know, four or five, I guess. All boys and every one of ’em a dead ringer for their dad.”

“Is his father living?”

“No, the old man died when he was a kid. But he’s got a grand old mother and a kid brother out in Chi. They’re the first ones he thinks about after a match, them and his wife and kiddies. And he don’t forget to send the old woman a thousand bucks after every bout. He’s goin’ to buy her a new home as soon as they pay him off for this match.”

“How about his brother? Is he going to tackle the game?”

“Sure, and Midge says he’ll be a champion before he’s twenty years old. They’re a fightin’ fam’ly and all of ’em honest and straight as a die. Get what I mean? A fella that I can’t tell you his name come to Midge in Milwaukee onct and wanted him to throw a fight and Midge give him such a trimmin’ in the street that he couldn’t go on that night. That’s the kind he is. Get what I mean?”

Joe Morgan hung around the camp until Midge and his trainers returned.

“One o’ the boys from The News,” said Wallie by way of introduction. “I been givin’ him your fam’ly hist’ry.”

“Did he give you good dope?” he inquired.

“He’s some historian,” said Joe.

“Don’t call me no names,” said Wallie smiling. “Call us up if they’s anything more you want. And keep your eyes on us Monday night. Get what I mean?”

The story in Sunday’s News was read by thousands of lovers of the manly art. It was well written and full of human interest. Its slight inaccuracies went unchallenged, though three readers, besides Wallie Adams and Midge Kelly, saw and recognized them. The three were Grace, Tommy Haley and Jerome Harris and the comments they made were not for publication.

Neither the Mrs. Kelly in Chicago nor the Mrs. Kelly in Milwaukee knew that there was such a paper as the New York News. And even if they had known of it and that it contained two columns of reading matter about Midge, neither mother nor wife could have bought it. For The News on Sunday is a nickel a copy.

Joe Morgan could have written more accurately, no doubt, if instead of Wallie Adams, he had interviewed Ellen Kelly and Connie Kelly and Emma Kelly and Lou Hersch and Grace and Jerome Harris and Tommy Haley and Hap Collins and two or three Milwaukee bartenders.

But a story built on their evidence would never have passed the sporting editor.

“Suppose you can prove it,” that gentleman would have said, “It wouldn’t get us anything but abuse to print it. The people don’t want to see him knocked. He’s champion.”

A One-Man Team

“Two thirty today, boys,” announced the Coach. “How many can be there?”

“I have a class till three,” said Dickie.

“Me too,” said big Wickham.

“Cut ’em if you can,” said the Coach. “If you can’t, hustle out as soon as you’re through. We don’t get any too much daylight.”

Monday lunch at the training-table was over. The squad, chatting noisily, dispersed to afternoon tasks. The Coach and his three aids remained seated, for there were things to talk over.

It was the final week of the season, and the Doane game loomed large ahead. Harris had scouted the big rival school’s battle with Monroe on the preceding Saturday, and the others waited for him to offer his report.

“It’s a one-man team, Coach, just as Wallace and Dana told us,” he said. “Just take Davis out of their backfield, and they couldn’t score on the North Side Y.M.C.A.”

“Yes,” said the Coach, “but who’s going to ‘just take Davis out of their backfield?’ ”

“Well,” said Wallace, “you oughtn’t to be afraid of these one-man outfits after what you did to Monroe and Benjamin. Benjamin was their whole team, and what did he do against us? He might as well have been muzzled and on a leash. If he got away with anything, it was between halves.”

“There’s a difference between Monroe and Doane,” put in Dana. “All those Monroe coaches know about working up an attack, you could put on a souvenir postcard and mail it anywhere for one cent. Benjamin didn’t have as much protection as a kewpie. There was nothing for him to work with. I’m not trying to take away any credit from Coach, but I never saw a team give less help to a star than Monroe gave to Benjamin. It will be another thing again with Doane. They’ll have stuff built up round Davis that they didn’t show when we were watching them. Smith’s no fool.”

“I didn’t say he was,” retorted Harris. “He’s a good, smart coach and can construct as shifty an attack as you’d want to see. I don’t claim he cut loose with everything he had, for my benefit. But you know as well as I do that ninety percent of his offense is Davis. And you know Coach’s reputation for making a monkey out of that kind of an offense.” He smiled at his chief. “You deserve the rep’, don’t you?”

The Coach smiled back.

“I guess I do,” he said. “I guess Pelham and Marshall will admit that I do. Either one or the other of them had a one-man team the last three years I was at Leighton, and in those three years I didn’t lose a game. One year, Marshall had Kirby. Another year, Pelham’s whole attack was built round a big kid named Hostetter, a plunger. And the third year, it was Marshall again, with Flynn.”

“Was that the kicker?” asked Wallace.

“That was the kicker, and he was the best I ever saw. Their stunt was to let him punt on first downs when the ball was within thirty-five or forty yards of their own goal. They depended on him to gain in the exchanges till they got into the other side’s territory. Then they had a few plays that were to carry them up to where he could dropkick. He might have been harder to beat if I hadn’t had a pair of ends whose middle name was Block, and a quarterback who didn’t know how to drop a punt.

“Another thing in my favor was that Flynn was a frail kid and they were afraid to let him carry the ball. So they couldn’t fake much with him.

“Well, sir, I never saw such an exhibition of distance kicking as he gave against us⁠—and I never saw punts run back as far as we ran them. I had two men, instead of one, to protect my quarter on his catches, and I had my ends lay back about fifteen yards and take the first fellows that came to them. My quarter ran seventy yards for a touchdown after one catch, and he carried another to within easy plunging distance of their goal. And Flynn never got close enough to our end of the field to see the posts.

“The year Pelham had Hostetter, I played my secondary defense so close up that he really had to plunge through two lines instead of one⁠—though he didn’t plunge through either. But he was all they had, and they kept trying him, even when the whole crowd was yelling at them to let up on their star before he was killed. He’d plunged Pelham to victory on seven successive Saturdays, but he did most of his plunging toward his own goal when he ran up against us.

“Then there was the year that Marshall had Kirby. He was a boy a good deal on the Davis order; he could run and dodge, and he could pass as far as most people can kick. Well, I had a live center, that season, and two good defensive backs. I picked those three to stop Kirby, and they went into the game with orders to watch him and pay no attention to anyone else. Say, I’ll give you a hundred dollars for every yard Kirby gained, either passing or running.

“I’m tickled to death when I hear there’s one big, individual star on a team we’ve got to play. That’s my favorite dish, a one-man team.”

“Well, then,” said Harris, “you’ll enjoy a hearty meal when we play Doane.”

“And it’s a cinch,” said Wallace, “that Davis will get more work next Saturday than he ever did in his life. He’s captain, and it’s his last game.”

“If my boys play as I tell them,” said the Coach, “he’ll be glad it is his last game.”

“What did you think of their left halfback, Byron?” asked Dana, turning to Harris.

“Byron looks as if he ought to play football,” Harris replied. “He certainly is big and strong enough. I wish we had him. We could put him to work. But all they use him for is protecting Davis on his passes and runs. I bet we’ll hear more of him next year. If he can do other stuff as well as he blocks, he’ll be a whale.”

“He can block his head off against us if he wants to,” said the Coach. “I’m not going to bother Davis on his passes. I’m going to let him throw that ball just as far as he can. But when he throws it, one of my men will catch it or else it won’t be caught. And when he runs, he’ll run into more tacklers than he ever thought were on one football team.”

“Where are they coming from?” asked Dana.

“Out of my line,” said the Coach. “When you’re playing a man who never does anything but forward pass or sweep round the ends, what’s the use of sticking to an old army defense? We know that Davis is practically their entire attack, and we know what he can do. One of the things he can’t do is plunge. So I don’t see any sense in keeping my linemen nailed to one spot. I’m going to play everybody loose, and I’m going to tell every man on the team that if he doesn’t tackle Davis at least twice, he won’t get his letter. You’ll see what looks like the craziest defense ever pulled, but it’ll do the business.”

“Those Doane ends must be basketball players,” said Harris. “They don’t miss that old ball once in ten times.”

“When they get close to it,” said the Coach. “But I’m going to see that they don’t get close to it.”

On Thursday night the Coach had a frightful dream. He dreamed that his team was playing Doane. Davis received the ball on the kickoff and ran to midfield before he was thrown. Then, in utter disregard of his teaching, his boys lined up in a defensive formation that might have been designed to stop the old “guards back” play. Taking quick advantage, Davis shot a forward pass thirty yards down the field, and one of his basketball-trained ends, catching it, raced the rest of the way to a touchdown.

The Coach cried out in his sleep. His words might have been part of a prayer, save for the volume of voice he put into them.

He awoke trembling and slept but fitfully the rest of the night. In the morning he was the first man at the training-table, and his waiter, who was specializing in archeology and considered football a criminal waste of time, had to feign interest in the story of a nightmare that he neither understood nor cared to understand.

The Coach was just finishing his second cup of coffee when big Wickham and four of his fellow regulars came in.

“Good morning, Coach,” said Wickham.

“Good morning, Wickham,” his mentor replied. “What do you do when you see Davis get the ball?”

“I leave my position and run out to one side,” said Wickham.

“What side?”

“The side I think he’s going to run to.”

“What do you do when you get out there?”

“I tackle him.”

“Whom do you watch besides Davis?”

“Nobody.”

The Coach ordered more coffee.

“How about you, Robbins?” he asked. “What’s your job?”

“I’m going to watch Davis,” said the boy addressed.

“There’ll be thirty thousand doing that,” said the Coach. “Aren’t you going to do anything else?”

“I’m going to stop him,” said Robbins.

“What are you going to do when he shoots a pass?”

“Block an end.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes sir.”

The table was filled when the Coach again recounted his dream.

“It was just a dream and a bad one,” he said. “If it should come true, how many of you Varsity men would get your letters?” He paused for a reply, but his audience seemed stricken dumb. “Not a one of you,” he went on. “If Davis gets away with one good pass, the man responsible for it will come out of that game quicker than if he broke his neck. You, Barrows! What’s Doane’s captain’s name?”

“Davis,” replied a picture of health.

“How many times are you going to get him?”

“At least twice, if I live,” said Barrows.

“Is he going to dodge you?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“You’d better help it. There’s a couple of good men hustling for your place.”

The couple of good men tried not to look it.

“Classes or no classes,” said the Coach, “I expect everybody out on the field at two o’clock. I won’t keep you long. And remember, we’re leaving at four thirty. I may not be able to get here for lunch. If I’m not here, you can practice this song.” The Coach’s raucous voice filled the room:

Hang Doane’s Davis on a sour-apple tree,
Hang Doane’s Davis on a sour-apple tree,
Hang Doane’s Davis on a sour-apple tree,
As we go marching on.

His three assistants joined in the chorus.

“There, boys,” said the Coach when the song was over and the applause had died out, “you see we don’t have to teach football for a living. We’re in the game because we like it. Whether we keep on liking it or not depends on what you do to Davis on Saturday. Now remember! Two o’clock at the field, and the station at four thirty.”

Thirty pairs of eyes followed him to the door.

“The old man’s full of pep,” observed Harris. “He thinks we’ve got Davis stopped.”

“Well,” said Wallace, “I think we have, too.”

Barrows rose from the other end of the table and started out.

“You, Barrows!” shouted big Wickham. “What are you going to do Saturday?”

Barrows paused and burst into song.

Hang Doane’s Davis on a sour-apple tree!

And if it hadn’t been such a disrespectful thing to do, one might have supposed, from the tone of his voice, that he was mimicking the Coach.

“ ‘The career of the greatest football player Doane ever had will end with tomorrow’s game. Davis’ record has never been approached by another wearer of the D. In his three years of competition for the Varsity, he has scored at least one touchdown against every opponent. Will he cross the Blue and White goal-line tomorrow and keep his record? All Doane believes he will.’ ”

Harris was reading aloud from the Doane Daily. He and the Coach, having sent their charges to bed in Doane’s new fireproof hotel, lounged in the lobby, knowing that for themselves a good night’s sleep was impossible.

“It’s an even bet,” remarked the Coach, “that all Doane is wrong.”

“ ‘Coach Belden of the visitors,’ ” Harris read on, “has the reputation of being a wonderful architect of defenses designed to stop one man, but Doane will stake all its worldly goods on Davis’ ability to gain against any defense. Belden has had his scouts in the stand at all of Doane’s games this year, and undoubtedly he knows just where Davis is strong. But the coaches of other teams have been as well informed, and with what result? Davis has invariably made good against all opponents.’ ”

“And that,” said the Coach, “is because the coaches of other teams have been afraid to take a chance.”

“ ‘A defense to foil the Doane captain,’ ” Harris read, “ ‘is extremely difficult of construction. If his running game is checked, he is still certain to get away with some of those long forward passes that worked so effectively last Saturday. In one way or another, despite the best-laid plans of the wily Belden, Davis will gain ground, yards and yards of it.’ ”

“They’re nothing if not chesty,” remarked the Coach.

“ ‘Captain Davis was not present at last night’s mass-meeting in Crilly Hall. But wherever he was, he must have heard the wild cheering with which every mention of his name was greeted.

“ ‘Speeches were made by other members of the team and by Coach Smith. The latter talked with much more confidence than is his custom. He expressed the belief that Davis, playing his last game, would extend himself to the limit and that if he did, all the defenses in the world would be powerless to stop him.’ ”

“We shall see,” said the Coach.

Harris tossed the paper aside.

“I think I’ll turn in,” he said. “You’d better, too.”

“What’s the use?” said the Coach. “It’s only two o’clock.”

Harris bade his chief good night. The latter picked up the Daily and stared for some moments at its three-column picture of Doane’s brilliant captain.

“You may be a whale,” he said aloud, “but if I don’t stop you, I’ll quit coaching.”

On the walk in front of the hotel, five Doane students⁠—with the accent on the first syllable⁠—paused in their uncertain journey homeward long enough to give their weary throats a final workout.

Yea, Davis! Yea, Davis! Yea, Davis!
Doane! Doane! Doane!
Yea!

“They’ve got it on me,” said the Coach to himself. “When they do get to bed, they’ll sleep.”

It must be recorded that the Coach slept too. From four till six he slept, and again he dreamed of Davis. But this time the dream was pleasant. Doane’s star, his passes intercepted time after time and himself tackled by full eleven men and thrown for repeated losses, at last led his team off the field, hopeless and disgusted.

“One thing more, boys,” said the Coach. “I’m responsible for this defense, and if it isn’t the right one, I’ll take the blame. All I ask you to do is play it, play it as I’ve taught it to you. Remember, it’s his last chance to shine, and he’ll want to do all the shining. Forget everybody else and go after Davis. Now get him! Get him! Get him!”

The squad raced out of the dressing-room onto the field. From ten thousand throats came a welcoming cheer. Ten thousand voices chanted the Varsity hymn, trailing not more than a beat or two behind the accompaniment of the Blue and White band.

The team lined up and hurried through a few simple formations⁠—formations learned for exhibition purposes only.

The band started another tune. Someone had introduced the Coach’s parody to the crowd.

“Hang Doane’s Davis on a sour-apple tree,” sang the Blue and White rooters, and the Doane section smiled its appreciation.

But now the song was drowned in a flood of riotous cheers. Davis had arrived, Davis and the ten men who were to help him stage a fitting climax for his career of glory.

Yea, Davis! Yea, Davis! Yea, Davis!
Doane! Doane! Doane!
Yea!

The Coach and Harris, on the sidelines, observed closely Doane’s practice formation. Davis stood back in the kicker’s position. Byron and the other halfback, Moxey, were three or four yards behind the tackles. The quarter crouched behind his center, hands outstretched. The ball was passed to him. He tossed it to Byron, and the team jogged forward as in a simple line play.

“They’re not fooling anybody with that,” said the Coach.

“That’s their regular formation for Davis’ stuff,” said Harris. “The ball usually goes straight back to him, and the halfbacks are there to block.”

The referee called the rival captains to the center of the field. The Blue and White leader made his guess as the coin spun in the air. The guess was wrong.

“They get the north goal and that little breeze,” said the Coach. “We can try out that defense right away.”

The ball was kicked off short, and a Doane tackle caught it. He was thrown almost in his tracks.

“Now,” said the Coach, “we’ll see what Davis can do against a bunch that’s ready for him.”

Doane’s team lined up for scrimmage, against the most open defense that had ever been seen on that field.

“Lord!” said Dana on the bench.

“They could drive a truck through that hole in our middle.”

“But they have no truck,” replied Wallace.

Doane’s quarterback called three numbers. Back came the ball, not to Davis, but to the quarter himself. Straight through the big gap in the center of the line he sped. But a Blue and White guard managed to throw him off his balance, and his gain was only four yards.

“They’re trying to draw us in,” said the Coach. “Fine chance!”

Again the teams lined up, and again Davis took his station on the spot whence passes and kicks are sent away. His ends, the basketball players, were far out. His halfbacks stood where they could block an aggressive lineman and give their star a chance to do whatever was in his mind. But the play was a duplicate of the first. This time, however, the quarter tripped himself before he’d gone a yard.

“I should think that’d be enough bluffing,” said Harris.

“You can bet your pile it’ll be Davis this time,” said the Coach.

Barrows, from his position far down the field, yelled a warning to his fellows:

“Watch him this time! Watch a pass!”

Doane’s formation was slightly different on this, the third lineup. Davis stayed back, and the ends remained far out, but Byron moved over behind Moxey, the other halfback, in a sort of tandem. And as the signals were called, Davis shifted a little toward the side the two halfbacks were on.

“He’ll throw to that other side,” said the Coach.

He had hardly finished speaking when the ball was passed⁠—passed to Byron. Through the open gate between the Blue and White’s right tackle and guard drove the tandem. Down the field they romped, Moxey brushing aside the only member of Coach Belden’s secondary line who was not too much surprised to move.

Barrows made a desperate effort to nail the man with the ball, but Moxey floored him. Byron was across the line for a touchdown, and the game was hardly a minute old.

“Yea, Byron! Yea, Byron!” yelled the Doane stands.

And “Yea, Davis!” as Doane’s captain added a point with a perfect kick.

Dana hurried to his chief’s side.

“Better close in a little,” he advised. “They’ll go through our line for fifty touchdowns if we play that defense.”

“No,” said the Coach. ‘What they want us to do is close in and give Davis a chance. That score surprised them as much as it did us. They were trying to scare us into tightening up, and they just happened to score in the attempt. My center can stop that plunger from going too far, and I don’t care, if he gains only two or three yards at a clip. They’ll never keep that game up when they’ve got a man like Davis to work the other, especially when he’s captain and this is his last appearance. I’m going to stand pat for a while, at least.”

Once more the Blue and White kicked off, and once more Doane started out with their quarter-through-center play. But the Blue and White center, big Wickham, knew enough by this time to dive in when he saw where the play was headed; and in two tries Doane’s gain was less than three yards.

“Now I guess they’ll open up,” said the Coach.

But with everybody expecting a direct pass to Davis, the ball was snapped again to the quarter and shot sideways by that young man to the waiting Byron. Straight ahead he plunged, for nine yards and a first down.

“That’s enough,” said the Coach. “That little game will stop right here.”

He beckoned to Ainslee, a sub.

“Go in for Hayes,” he said. “Tell those fellows to close up. Tell them to stay closed up till they actually see the ball in Davis’ hands. When they do, they can spread out fast and stop him. They’ll have to keep their eyes open and step lively.”

The quarterback had gone through for another yard or so before Ainslee delivered his message. Then, when they saw the Blue and White defense tighten up, the Doane backs held a council of war while one of their guards played dead.

“With us bunched like that,” said Harris, “Davis will throw it a mile.”

“I can’t help it,” said the Coach. “I’ve got to take the chance.”

The consultation was over. Doane’s quarterback began shouting his numbers. Doane’s ends ran far out, and the Blue and White ends went with them. Moxey and Byron again lined up tandem, behind a tackle.

“My holes are plugged now,” said the Coach. “They can’t gain with that. They won’t try. It’ll be Davis this time, sure.”

But it wasn’t. The quarter took the pass and started to the left as if to sweep the Blue and White right end. Then, as a tackle was about to grasp him, he shot a lateral pass to Byron, who had dug for the sideline as the ball was snapped. The Doane left end smothered his adversary. Moxey dashed down the field unchallenged and put a defensive halfback out of it. Byron, running alone and so close to the boundary that the Doane substitutes could almost have reached out and touched him, had only Barrows between him and another score.

“Chase him out! Chase him out!” shrieked the Coach and his aids in chorus.

But Byron, safe from rear pursuit, had left the sideline and wass heading straight for the posts. And Barrows, not yet over the shock of the last touchdown, allowed himself to be dodged as cleanly as ever man was.

Davis kicked another easy goal while the stands shook with cheers for old Doane.

“Licked fourteen to nothing,” said the Coach. “Licked before we’ve even had a feel of the ball.”

“We’re not licked yet,” said Harris.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said the Coach. “You know how they’ll fight with that lead. And it’ll take our bunch the rest of the half to recover. Davis can punt on first downs from now on, and still trim us.”

Well, Doane proceeded to punt on first downs, but it was Moxey who did it, not Davis. And Moxey’s punting was as much of a revelation as Byron’s running had been. How those ends did cover his kicks, too! They were shaking hands with Barrows before ever the ball came down, and they worried him so that along in the second period he made a square muff and gave them their third and last touchdown.

Between halves the Coach talked, as coaches will. But the Coach did not scold, because the Coach was a just coach.

“Boys,” he said, “they’ve made us look bad, and I’m taking most of the blame. I thought Davis was their football team, and I made you think the same thing. We paid entirely too much attention to him in practice. I thought if we stopped him, we had all the best of it. I thought they’d quit when they saw that he couldn’t get anywhere. But it seems they have two or three other fellows with speaking parts.

“But the game isn’t over yet, and you boys can still win by fighting. In this next quarter I want you to play the best football you know how, and to play just as if you’d never heard of Davis or anybody else on their team. Forget everything except that we’re behind and must catch up. They’ve had the luck so far, but it’s time for it to break our way. Give them everything you’ve got, and remember some of you are playing your last game. There’s no reason to hold back anything. It’s mostly my fault if you lose. If you win, the credit’s all yours. Now go to it!”

And his men went to it, with spirit and fight, which are better than almost anything except twenty-one points and a team full of confidence. They fought and they fought, and their reward was seven points, just one-third of what Doane had.

There was no problem of defense for the Blue and White to solve in the second half. Whenever Doane got the ball, it was kick, kick, kick. Four times did Coach Belden’s braves push the oval up to the shadow of Doane’s goal, and three times they were stopped just short of a score. Three times Moxey’s good right foot shot the ball back over acres of ground that Belden’s team had fought, yard by yard, to gain.

When the last quarter began, there was a substitute in Davis’ place.

“Their captain’s out,” said Harris.

The Coach did not reply at once. He was thinking.

And in the dressing-room, when the game was history and his poor beaten boys had shed their armor and departed, he spoke.

“Didn’t you think it was funny?” he asked Dana.

“There was no laugh in it for me.”

“Queer, then, if you’d rather,” said the Coach.

“Well,” said Harris, “it was queer that we scouts couldn’t see anything to their team but Davis. How we overlooked Byron and Moxey and those ends is beyond me.”

“I won’t apologize for overlooking them,” said Dana. “When I saw Doane play, all the ends did was catch Davis’ throws, and all the halfbacks did was protect Davis. The information I gave Coach was absolutely correct.”

“All right,” said Harris, “and so was mine. When I scouted them, Davis was the only man besides the center and the ends who had his hands on the ball.”

“Yes,” said the Coach, “and how many times did Davis have his hands on the ball today?”

“Hardly at all,” said Harris.

“Not ‘hardly at all,’ ” said the Coach. “No ‘hardly’ about it. If you’ll look back through that game, you’ll see that Davis never touched the ball except with his foot, and then only when he was kicking goals from touchdowns.”

“By George, you’re right!” said Dana.

“You certainly are!” said Wallace.

“You bet I’m right,” said the Coach. “And that’s what was queer. Here’s a star player, the captain of the team, playing his last game of collegiate football. He can run like a deer, punt pretty well and pass better than anybody you ever saw. But in his final game he kicks three goals from touchdowns and stands there the rest of the afternoon as idle as a goalpost.”

“Smith’s even smarter than we figured him,” said Harris.

“He knew we’d be laying for Davis, and he crossed us,” said Dana.

“He surely did cross us, and I’ll admit that he deserves credit,” said the Coach. “But I don’t believe he’s as much of a strategist as all that. I’ve read a lot about Napoleon, but I don’t recall his ever having kept his best army in the stable during a big battle, just to fool the other side. And did Hughey Jennings ever order Ty Cobb to go up and take three strikes in an important game because the other club expected him to hit? Hardly! If Smith, all by his lonesome, could sit down and think of the scheme they worked on us today, he wouldn’t be coaching football teams. He’d be Thomas A. Edison’s boss.”

“Who helped him, do you s’pose?” asked Harris.

“I’ll know when I see Smith,” said the Coach. “And you bet I’m going to see him.”

The Coach found Smith in the café of Doane’s new fireproof hotel. It was several minutes before he could get him away from a crowd of wild Doane rooters, who could imagine no greater treat than to shake his hand.

“Here’s Belden!” they cried. “What do you think of Smith, Belden? Is he the best coach in America, or isn’t he?”

“He is,” said the Coach, “and I want a chance to tell him so privately.”

So the Coach led his triumphant rival to a table in the corner, as far as possible from the mad throng.

“I want to congratulate you, Smith,” said the Coach.

“Thanks,” said Smith.

“You completely outguessed me, Smith.”

“Thank you for saying so,” said Smith.

“I never heard of a stunt like that before, keeping your star idle when you knew we were primed for him⁠—not letting him handle the ball in his last game and then taking him out before the game was over. Why, I had a defense framed that would have made Davis look foolish, if you’d given it a chance. And how in the world did you ever keep two men like Moxey and Byron under cover so long?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Smith, “I didn’t know till last Wednesday that they could play football.”

“So it wasn’t till last Wednesday that you thought of this stunt?”

“That’s right,” said Smith.

“Now, Smith,” said the Coach, “I don’t want you to think I underestimate your ability. But did this idea originate in your own head? Did you get it up all alone?”

“No,” said Smith, “I didn’t. I had help.”

“Who helped you?”

“Old Lady Necessity, the mother of invention,” said Smith.

“What do you mean?” asked the Coach.

“You know, of course,” said Smith, “that Davis is right-handed.”

“What of it?” demanded the Coach.

“Well,” said Smith, “in scrimmage practice, last Tuesday night, Davis broke his right wrist.”

The Facts

Tour Y-10

The Holdout

Three people, not countin’ myself, think I’m the greatest guy in the world. One o’ them’s my first and last wife, another’s Mr. Edwards, and the other’s Bill Hagedorn.

It’d be hard to pick three that I’d rather have cordial. If a person is livin’ with their wife, it makes it kind o’ pleasant to have her like you. Mr. Edwards, o’ course, is the man I’m workin’ for, so it don’t hurt me at all to be his hero. And I’m glad to have Bill added to the list, because it means he’ll play the bag better for me this year than he’s done yet, and with a little pep on first base we’re liable to be bad news to George Stallin’s, Wilbert Robinson and John J. McGraw.

But listen: If Mr. Edwards ever got hold o’ the truth o’ the Hagedorn business, him and I’d be just as clubby as Lord George and the Kaiser. If he didn’t drop dead when he found it out, he’d slip me the tinware, contract or no contract, and I wouldn’t have the heart to fight it in the courts, because I admit I gave him a raw deal. My only alibi is that I left my feelin’s get the best o’ me, and that excuse wouldn’t be worth a dime with him; they’s no excuse that would be, where his pocketbook’s concerned, like in this case. He just simply hates money!

The worst of it is that Hagedorn didn’t deserve no consideration. I like to see a fella get all that’s comin’ to him, provided he goes after it in the right way and puts up a real fight. Hagedorn made a hog of himself and was tremblin’ all the time he did it. If he was as yellow on the ball field as when he’s makin’ a play for more dough, I’d take away his uniform and suspend him for life; he wouldn’t be no more use to me than a set of adenoids.

He’s just as game a ball player, though, as you’ll find. The minute he trots out there in the old orchard he’s a different guy, afraid o’ nothin’. All he’s lacked so far is ambish, and I figure he’ll show some o’ that this year. He’ll give me his best out o’ gratitude. If he don’t, it’ll mean his finish on the big time, family or no family.

It’s part o’ my agreement with Mr. Edwards that I stick on the job all the year round, goin’ to the league meetin’s with him in winter, helpin’ him sign up the boys, and so forth. Well, after we was through last fall, he called me up in the office and begin crabbin’ about finances.

“Frank,” he says, “we lost $18,000 this season. I pretty near wish I didn’t have no ball club.”

“You’ve pretty near got your wish,” I says. “If some o’ those bushers don’t come through next spring, or if we don’t swing a couple o’ deals between now and then, the clubs that play against us won’t even get good practice.”

“Bad as we are,” he says, “I bet we got the biggest salary list in the big leagues. It looks to me like not only one or two, but several of our men were bein’ overpaid.”

“Yes, sir,” I says; “and on their showin’ the last few months some o’ them would be overpaid if they drawed a dollar a day.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m goin’ to do some trimmin’. The boys’ll kick, I suppose, but I’m dependin’ on you to show ’em they deserve cuts.”

“That’s a nice little job for me,” I says. “It’s just as easy to convince a ball player that his pay ought to be trimmed as it is to score twelve runs off Alexander.”

“I’d just as leave pay good prices for good work,” he says, “but I’m not goin’ to maintain no pension bureau. These ridic’lous Federal League contracts have all run out, thank heavens, and from now on my ball club’ll be run on a sane basis. Look at Lefty Grant!” he says. “He got $7,000 and pitched pretty near eleven full games, winnin’ three o’ them. And look at Hagedorn! A $6,000 contract and no more life in him than a wet rag! What do you suppose ailed him?”

“Federalitis,” I says. “He was gettin’ soft money in the Federal, with no incentive to win and nobody to try and make him hustle.”

“A $6,000 salary,” says Mr. Edwards, “for a man that hit round .220 and played first base like he was bettin’ against us! Maybe we’d better just let loose of him.”

“If I was you,” I says, “I’d see what the recruits is like before gettin’ rid o’ Hagedorn. I’ll admit he’s been loafin’, but he’s a mighty good ball player when he tries.”

“Maybe it’ll wake him up to cut him,” says he. “I’m goin’ to send him a contract for $4,000.”

“Suit yourself,” says I. “He’ll holler like an Indian, but if he sees you’re in earnest I guess he’ll come round.”

“He lives here in town,” says Mr. Edwards. “I’ll have the girl call him up sometime and tell him I want to see him.”

So we discussed a few others that was gettin’ way more than they earned, and the boss says he wouldn’t play no favorites, but would cut ’em all from ten to forty percent. I knew they’d be plenty o’ trouble, but I didn’t care a whole lot. I figured that if everybody on the payroll quit the game and went to work it’d strengthen the team.

Well, Hagedorn accepted Mr. Edwards’ invitation to call and I was in the office when Bill come in.

“Mr. Hagedorn,” says the boss, “Manager Conley and myself’s been talkin’ things over and we come to the conclusion that several o’ you boys was earnin’ less than we paid you. What do you think about it?”

“Well,” says Hagedorn, “some o’ the boys maybe deserve cuts. But I don’t see how I come in on it.”

“Why not?” says Mr. Edwards. “The unofficial averages gives you a battin’ percentage o’ .220.”

“I can’t help what them dam scorers do to me,” says Bill. “I never did get fair treatment from the reporters.”

“But when you was in the league before,” says the boss, “you always hit up round .280, and it’s a cinch the scorers didn’t cheat you out o’ sixty points.”

“They’d cheat me out o’ my shirt if they had a chance,” Bill says. “But even if I did have a bad year with the wood, that ain’t no sign I won’t do all right next season.”

“That’s true enough,” says Mr. Edwards. “Anybody’s liable to have a battin’ slump. But Manager Conley and myself wasn’t thinkin’ about your hittin’ alone. We kind o’ thought that your work all round was below the standard; that you was sort o’ layin’ down on the job.”

Hagedorn began to whine.

“Mr. Edwards,” he says, “you got me entirely wrong. I wouldn’t lay down on nobody. I’ve give you my best every minute, and if I haven’t it was because things broke bad for me.”

“What things?” I ast him.

“Well,” he says, “for one thing, I felt rotten all summer. My legs was bad.”

“Well,” I says, “you can’t expect Mr. Edwards to pay $3,000 apiece for bad legs.”

“But they’re all right now,” he says. “I haven’t had a bit o’ trouble with ’em all fall. And I’m takin’ grand care o’ myself and next spring I’ll be as good as ever.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your legs?” I ast him. “I’d of let you lay off. You certainly wasn’t helpin’ us much.”

“I’d of told you only I don’t like to quit,” he says. “And besides, my legs wasn’t the whole trouble.”

“What else was it?” I says.

“Well,” he says, “the Missus was sick and in the hospital, and I had to pay out a lot o’ money and it kept me worried.”

“When was she sick?” I ast him.

“Let’s see,” he says, “it was while we was on our last Eastern trip.”

“You never ast me to let you come home,” I says.

“No,” he says, “I didn’t know nothin’ at all about it till we got back.”

“That’s why you worried, I suppose,” says I, “and I guess your wife’s illness in September was what worried you in June and July.”

“She was sick on and off all season,” he says.

“I noticed,” says I, “that she done most of her sufferin’ in a grandstand seat. Her ailment,” I says, “was probably brought on by watchin’ you perform.”

“She’s full o’ nerve,” he says. “She wouldn’t miss a ball game if she was dyin’. And besides, her sickness wasn’t all of it.”

“Let’s hear the whole story at once,” I says. “The suspense is fierce.”

“Her folks kept botherin’ us,” says Hagedorn. “They live in Louisville, and they’re gettin’ old and they wanted that she should come down there and stay with ’em.”

“Couldn’t they come up here?” I ast him.

“No,” he says, “they got their own home and their own friends and everything down there.”

“Well,” I says, “that’d probably be the square thing for you to do, just pack up and move to Louisville and live with ’em.”

“We’d only be there in the winter,” he says.

“No,” says I, “I’ll fix it so’s you can be there all the year round.”

“What do you mean?” he says.

“I mean that if you don’t want to sign at our figures Louisville’d be the ideal spot for you,” says I.

“What’s your figures?” he ast.

“I’m willin’ to give you $4,000,” says Mr. Edwards.

Hagedorn swelled up.

“If you think I’ll take a $2,000 cut, you got me wrong,” he says.

“All right,” says I, “and I hope the Kentucky climate agrees with your legs.”

We sent Lefty Grant a contract for $5,000 and after a little crabbin’ by mail he signed. Joe Marsh stood for a $1,000 cut, and Bones McChesney, shaved from $3,500 to $3,000, refused to sign and got himself sold to Toronto. I didn’t cry over losin’ him; he’d always been fat from his neck up, and in the last two seasons the epidemic had spread all over his body.

Now it don’t often happen that a seventh-place club begins lookin’ like a pennant contender between October and February. But that’s what come off with us. Our worst weakness last year was at shortstop and third base and back o’ the bat. Well, I talked to a lot of Association men durin’ the fall, and they told me that I had a second Schalk in this young Stremmle from Indianapolis. And I got swell reports on Berner, the shortstop we drew from Dayton. Both these guys, I was told, were ready. They wouldn’t need no more seasonin’.

And then along come the league meetin’ in New York, and I happened to catch the St. Louis gang when they were thinkin’ about somethin’ else, and they traded me Johnny Gould for Hype Corliss and Jack Moran, two guys that I’d kept down in the bull pen all summer so’s the bugs couldn’t get a good look at ’em. There was my third base hole plugged up and the ball club was bound to be a hundred percent better, provided Hagedorn signed and give us his best work, or that young Lahey, the first sacker we bought from Davenport, made good. I wasn’t worryin’ much about him, as I figured right along that Hagedorn would take his $4,000 when he seen we were in earnest.

O’ course he had a little bit the best of us in the argument⁠—that is, he would of had if he’d knew enough. Him and Lahey was the only candidates for first base, and no matter if he played the position in a hammock, he’d be better than an inexperienced kid from the Three Eye. Even if he wasn’t never worth a nickel over $4,000, here was a grand chance for him to hold us up. All he had to do was lay quiet at home, and when it come time for us to go South we’d of looked him up and met his demands. But no, he didn’t have the nerve or sense to go at it the right way.

Instead o’ keepin’ us guessin’, what does he do but hunt up excuses to come and hang round the office and try and get a hint o’ whether we were goin’ to stand pat or back down. I was alone the first time he showed.

“Hello, Bill,” I says. “Did you bring your fountain pen?”

“What for?” he says.

“To sign that $4,000 contract,” says I.

“Oh, no,” he says, “I wasn’t thinkin’ nothin’ about the contract. I come up to see if they was any mail for me.”

“Not now,” I says, “but you may be hearin’ from the Louisville club in a few days.”

“What would they be writin’ me about?” he says.

“Maybe they’ll hear about you wantin’ to move there,” I says, “and they’ll probably be askin’ you if you’d care to take a job with ’em.”

“Well,” says Bill, “you won’t catch me playin’ ball with Louisville.”

“Who was you thinkin’ about playin’ with?” I ast him.

“Nobody,” he says. “I’ve decided to quit.”

“That’s fine, Bill!” I says. “Somebody left you money?”

“No,” he says, “but I got some o’ my own saved up.”

“How much?” I ast him.

“Close to $2,000,” says Bill.

“Fine work!” says I. “You must of lived pretty simple to save $2,000 in seven years.”

“I never skimped,” says Bill.

“Well,” I says, “I don’t know how you managed. But it’s nice to feel that you won’t never have to skimp again. If you can get six percent for your money, that’ll mean $120 a year or $10 a month. That puts you on Easy Street. All you’ll have to get along without is food, clothes, heat and a place to live.”

He paid us another visit Christmas week, thinkin’, maybe, that Mr. Edwards would be runnin’ over with holiday spirits.

This was a bum guess. The old man’s got more relatives than a perch, and when he was through buyin’ presents for all o’ them he wouldn’t of paid a telephone slug for the release o’ Ty Cobb.

“No mail yet,” I says to Bill when he come in.

“I wasn’t expectin’ no mail,” he says. “I was just wonderin’ if I left a pair o’ gloves here last time.”

“A pair o’ tan gloves?” I says.

“Yes,” says Hagedorn.

“I didn’t see ’em,” I says. “I found some gray ones.”

“How is everything?” he says.

“Fine!” says I. “It looks like we’re goin’ to have a regular ball club.”

“Well, I hope you do,” Bill says.

“Gould’s goin’ to help us a lot,” says I, “and they tell me Stremmle and Berner’s both good enough for anybody’s team. And then, o’ course, we got young Lahey.”

“Who’s young Lahey?” ast Bill.

“Can’t be you never heard of him,” I says. “He’s the first sacker from Davenport that everybody was after. They say you can’t hardly tell him from Hal Chase when he’s in action. And he cracked the marble for about .340 last season.”

“Hittin’ .340 in the sticks and hittin’ it up here is two different things,” says Hagedorn.

“Not so different,” I says. “A bird that can hit .340 anywhere can hit pretty good.”

That’s right, too. But the truth was that Lahey’s figure had been eighty points shy o’ what I credited him with. And from what I’d learned from some o’ the Three Eye boys, Lahey was the eighth best first baseman in their league.

“Well,” says Hagedorn, “if he makes good, you won’t have no use for me.”

“No,” I says, “but I’d hate to see you go back in the bushes.”

“Don’t worry!” he says. “I’m goin’ to stick right here in town.”

“And live on your savin’s?” I says.

“No,” says Bill. “I’m just about signed up to play with the Acmes in the semipro league.”

“How much are they givin’ you?” I ast him.

“Fifty a game, and they only play Sundays,” he says.

“Yes,” says I, “and they’re doin’ well if they play twenty games a season. That nets you $1,000, and you’ll have somethin’ like six days a week to spend it in.”

“I can work at somethin’ durin’ the week,” he says. “Maybe sell automobiles or somethin’.”

“You could do that in the winter, too,” I says, “if you didn’t waste so much o’ your time comin’ for your mail and lookin’ for your gloves.”

“How’s Mr. Edwards?” says Bill.

“Fine and dandy!” I says. “Want to see him?”

“What would I want to see him about?” says Bill.

“You might be able to sell him a car,” says I. “He’s right in the spendin’ mood now. His nieces and nephews and Mr. Wilson’s peace note has relieved him o’ the few hundreds he had left after last season. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d reconsider cuttin’ your contract⁠—maybe give you a bonus just for the devil of it.”

While we was talkin’ Mr. Edwards come out from his private office.

“Hello, Hagedorn,” he says. “Ready to sign?”

“At my own figure,” says Bill.

“That’s good,” says Mr. Edwards. “Conley and myself was afraid you might accept the cut, and we couldn’t hardly afford to keep an extra first baseman at $4,000 a year.”

“It’s best all round,” I says. “Bill’s goin’ to make more dough than we could possibly give him; he’s goin’ to sell cars durin’ the week and play semipro ball Sundays. And maybe he can master the barber trade and pick up a few extra hundreds Saturday nights. But even if he don’t make a nickel, he’s got $2,000 hoarded up.”

“That’s fine!” says the boss. “I like to see thrift in a young man. And it always seems like a pity that so many boys squander their earnin’s and have to keep on slavin’ as ball players till they’re thirty years old and past the prime o’ life.”

For three or four days early in January they was an epidemic o’ lockjaw in Washin’ton, and the market come up enough for Mr. Edwards to take a trip to New Orleans. He left me in charge o’ things, and my job consisted o’ makin’ up stories for the newspaper boys and entertainin’ Hagedorn about once a week.

Once he dropped in to find out Joe Marsh’s address; it’d of been impossible, o’ course, to inquire by telephone. Another time he just happened to be passin’, and happened to remember that he was carryin’ a letter that his wife had ast him to mail, and wanted to know if I had a stamp.

I entertained him every time with dope on Lahey and what a whale of a man he was goin’ to make us. But one day he come up loaded with some real facts about the guy I’d been boostin’.

“I thought you told me Lahey hit .340 with Davenport,” he says.

“I did tell you that,” says I.

“Well,” says Bill, “somebody was stringin’ you. I seen the Three Eye records the other day and they give Lahey .262.”

“That don’t mean nothin’,” I says. “The scorers probably had it in for him.”

“And he made more boots than any first baseman in the league,” says Bill.

“That shows he was hustlin’,” I says. “The more ground you cover, the more you’re liable to kick ’em round. Besides,” I says, “he was so perfect that the scorers probably thought he’d ought to make plays that would be impossible for a common first sacker.”

“Another thing,” says Hagedorn: “I happened to run acrost Jack Wells that played in the league with him, and he tells me Lahey’s a left-hand hitter. Well, Gould’s a left-hand hitter and so’s young Berner, and you already had two left-hand hitters amongst the regulars. Your club’s goin’ to be balanced like a stew on a wild bronco. McGraw and them’ll left-hand you to death.”

“What do you care!” I says.

“It’s nothin’ to me,” says Bill.

“Well, what do you suppose we better do about it?” I ast him.

“If I was you,” he says, “I’d try and get myself a first baseman that hits right-handed.”

“It’s too late to get anybody,” says I. “I guess we’re just plain up against it. I wisht you hadn’t made up your mind to retire.”

“I’d play for you,” says Bill, “if you’d meet my price.”

“That’s up to the old man,” I says, “but I know he won’t back down. He wouldn’t give in to one man when he’s stood pat on all the rest o’ them.”

“It won’t be just one man,” says Bill.

“What do you mean?” I ast him.

“He’ll be lucky if he’s got anybody when the showdown comes,” says Bill. “The fraternity’s give orders that nobody’s to sign till you hear from them, and you won’t hear from them till the leagues meets its demands.”

“That don’t affect our club,” I says. “We got every man already signed up except yourself.”

“Yes,” says Hagedorn, “but signed up or not signed up, they won’t report till the fraternity tells ’em to.”

“You’ve been playin’ long enough to know better’n that,” says I. “If you think any ball player’s goin’ without his prunes to help out some other ball player, you got even less brains than I figured.”

“They’ll have to strike if the fraternity says so,” says Bill. “They’re goin’ into the Federation o’ Labor and be like any other union. And if they don’t strike when they’re ordered to they’ll be canned out o’ the fraternity.”

“Well,” I says, “suppose you was Ty Cobb, draggin’ down a measly $16,000 a year, or whatever he’s gettin’. Which would you do if the choice come up, go without the $16,000 or go without the fraternity?”

“I’d certainly stick with the fraternity,” says Hagedorn. “If I didn’t, I’d be a traitor.”

“If I make you out a contract for $6,000, will you sign it?” I ast him.

“Sure,” he says. “I always told you I’d sign for my price.”

“Well, Bill,” I says, “I won’t give you the contract. I’d hate to think I’d made a traitor out o’ you.”

“I don’t want no contract anyway,” says Bill. “I’m through. I’m goin’ into business.”

“What business?” I says.

“Somethin’ pretty good,” he says. “I and a friend o’ mine’s goin’ in partners in a garage.”

“That’s a great idear!” says I. “You won’t have no competition, and it won’t cost nothin’ to start, and besides that, it’s a game you know more about than any other, unless it’s dressmakin’.”

“My friend knows all about it,” says Bill, “and I can pick it up from him.”

“You better stick to pickin’ up low throws,” I says. “It takes years to learn the mechanism of a car when you don’t know nothin’ to start, not even what makes the front wheels run. But o’ course you won’t be the only one in the garage business that has to learn, and so long as it’s other people’s cars you wreck while you’re learnin’, why what’s the difference!”

“They’s good money in a garage,” says Bill.

“I know it, and a whole lot of it’s mine,” I says. “They’s good money in any business like that⁠—smugglin’ or counterfeitin’ or snatchin’ purses. But it must be hell on a man’s conscience, even worse’n drawin’ $6,000 per annum for takin’ a six months’ nap on the old ball field.”

The first thing Mr. Edwards ast me when he got back from the South was what was the latest dope on Hagedorn.

“He’s surprised me,” I says. “I thought he’d give in long before this. But nothin’ doin’.”

“What will we do about it?” says the boss.

“Mr. Edwards,” I says, “you’re the man that’s payin’ me my money, and it’s my business to look out for your interests. If Hagedorn had of kept away from here all winter, if we hadn’t heard nothin’ from him from the day he first turned down the contract, I’d say give him his $6,000. But him comin’ round here once a week shows that he needs us as much as we need him, and that he’ll stand for the cut if he’s got to. Besides, he’s showed a mighty poor opinion o’ me by expectin’ me to believe all that junk about him goin’ into business, and so on⁠—stuff that was old in the Noah’s Ark League. He couldn’t earn a dime a day in anything outside o’ baseball. If he had a factory that made shells out o’ lake water, he’d be bankrupt in a month. Now they’s probably four better first basemen than him in the league, but I doubt if more’n one o’ them’s drawin’ $6,000. O’ course with him on the ball club it looks like we’d be somewheres up in the race, and we ain’t got a chance with a busher playin’ the position.

“If it was a case o’ givin’ him his dough or gettin’ along without him, I’d rather see him get the money even if it’s a holdup. But if I’m any judge of a ball player, he’ll come round here on his hands and knees the day before we start for the Springs, and he’ll sign at whatever price you offer him.”

“It’s a shame,” says Mr. Edwards, “when everything else looks so good for us, to have to be worryin’ about a man like him, that loafed on us all last summer and that I’d get rid of in a minute if I had somebody in his place. I suppose they’s no chance o’ tradin’ for a first baseman at this stage.”

“Oh, yes, they’s a chance,” I says. “I suppose Matty’d let us have Chase if we’d give up our pitchin’ staff and half a dozen infielders and $40,000 or $50,000 in cash. Then we’d have Chase and nothin’ with him.”

“Maybe young Lahey’ll surprise us,” says the boss.

“It won’t hurt us to hope,” I says, “but from what I can learn Bill Doyle was mad at you when he recommended him. And besides,” I says, “Lahey’s a left-hand hitter, and that’d mean five o’ them in the game every day. We’d be a setup for fellas like Schupp and Smith and Tyler. Take Hagedorn, and he can murder a left-hander even when he ain’t hittin’ his weight against a regular pitcher.”

“Well, all we can do is wait,” says Mr. Edwards.

“And I don’t think it’ll be long,” I says.

But when the night come for us to start South, Hagedorn was still a holdout, though he did show one more sign o’ weakenin’. He was down to the station to shake hands with the boys and see us off, and he looked like he was ready to cry. I called him off to one side.

“Would you like to be goin’ along, Bill?” I ast him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says.

“Why don’t you take your medicine and hop aboard?” I says. “Your missus can pack up your stuff and send it after you.”

“I’ll go if you say the word,” he says.

“You’re the one that must do the talkin’,” says I.

“Why couldn’t I go along without signin’?” he says. “Maybe the old man would meet my figure when he seen how hard I’d work to get in shape.”

“No,” says I; “this ain’t no charity excursion we’re runnin’. We pay nobody’s fare that ain’t signed up and a member o’ this ball club. If you want to sign at $4,000, they’s a contract right there in my grip. If you don’t, why you can spend the rest o’ the winter countin’ snowflakes and cursin’ the coal trust.”

“Well,” he says, “I’ll freeze to death before I’ll be robbed; starve to death, too, before I’ll let old Edwards bull me out o’ what’s comin’ to me.”

“I’m sorry, Bill,” I says. “But anyway, good luck to you.”

“Good luck to you too,” says Bill. “You’ll need it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I says. “I got a hunch that it’s goin’ to be a great year for everybody in baseball.”

“Well,” says Hagedorn, “I know some fellas that’ll have a great year.”

“Who do you mean, Bill?” I ast him.

“All the left-handers that pitches against your ball club,” he says.

About half the baseball reporters on our papers know somethin’ about the game. The other half’s kids that can write cute stories, but don’t know a wild pitch from a hit and run sign. This was the half that went on the spring trip with us. The old heads was sent with the Americans, because they’d made a fight for the pennant last year and the public was strong for ’em.

Well, I took advantage of our gang bein’ green and made ’em perjure themself to their papers every day. When they’d come to me for the dope, I’d rave to ’em about what a world-beater young Lahey was, and how he’d burn up the league as soon as I’d learned him a few o’ the fine points o’ first-base play. If they’d been wise they could of told with one look that Mr. Lahey wouldn’t do. But they were just kids and they ate it up. I bet if any o’ the fellas that had played with Lahey read what I was sayin’ about him in the papers they must of thought I was crazy.

My idear, o’ course, was to worry Hagedorn. I knew he’d be readin’ everything he could find about us, and I didn’t want him to get the impression that the ball club was goin’ to bust up without him.

I thought Mr. Edwards would have sense enough to get this. But no; he fell just as hard as the reporters. And when he joined us after we’d been at the Springs two weeks, he was all smiles.

“Well,” he says, “I been readin’ some mighty encouragin’ news.”

“What news?” I says.

“About Lahey,” says he. “I told you he might surprise us.”

“He’s surprised me in one way,” I says. “I’m surprised that he ever had the nerve to come on this trainin’ trip. I always thought pretty well o’ the Three Eye League till I seen him,” I says.

“You’re jokin’,” says Mr. Edwards. “I’ve read nothin’ but good reports of him.”

“I’m responsible for the reports,” I says, “but I thought you’d guess that I was fakin’ for Hagedorn’s benefit.”

“Well, if you’ve fooled Hagedorn, he’s got company,” says Mr. Edwards. “I thought our troubles was all over.”

“Our troubles won’t never be over if Hagedorn don’t give in,” I says.

“But Lahey must be some good, the way he was recommended,” says the boss.

“Doyle probably seen him just once,” I says, “and that must of been the one good day he had. But even at that, Doyle couldn’t of never watched him handle his feet and thought he was a ball player.”

“Is it just his feet that’s the trouble?” ast Mr. Edwards.

“No,” I says, “but they’d be plenty without outside help. We’ve had infield practice about nine times since we been here, and that means he’s got nine hundred self-inflicted spike wounds. And they must of kept first base in a different place down to Davenport. Anyway he can’t find it here. And when he does happen to stumble onto it, it’s always with the wrong foot. Besides that, every time Gould or Berner makes a low peg Lahey loses a tooth. Gould ast him one day why he didn’t wear a mask. But you ought to see him field bunts! If experience counts for anything, he’d ought to be the most accurate thrower in the world, from a sittin’ posture.”

“How about his hittin’?” the boss ast me.

“He’s a consistent hitter,” I says. “They’s a party from Kansas City stoppin’ at the hotel. They come out to every practice and always set in the same place, right back o’ the plate, behind the grandstand screen. Well, every ball Lahey’s hit so far has made ’em duck.”

“Does he act like he had stage fright?” says the boss.

“Not him!” says I. “Nobody but the gamest guy in the world could cut off a few toes every day and come out the next day for more. And nobody without a whole lot o’ nerve could keep diggin’ after low throws when he knows that they’re goin’ to uppercut him in the jaw. No, sir! You can’t scare Charley!”

“Charley!” says Mr. Edwards. “I thought his name was Mike.”

“Gould’s nicknamed him Charley,” I says, “after Charley Chaplin.”

Well, the boss wasn’t what you could call tickled to death with my dope on Lahey, but he cheered up a little when I told him about Gould and the rest o’ them. Gould was goin’ even better than when he was with St. Louis. He was hustlin’ like a colt and hittin’ everything they throwed up there. And he kept coachin’ young Berner like he’d been hired for that job. He put real pep in the infield, and I knew it was tough for him to keep it up when Lahey gummed pretty near every play that was pulled.

Berner cinched his job the first day out. He’s the kind of a kid that just won’t stay on the bench, as lively and full o’ fight as little Bush, at Detroit, or Buck Weaver, or Rabbit Maranville. And Stremmle come up to everything they said about him. Then Joe Marsh seemed to of got over the Federal League and acted five years younger than he is. And our outfield was workin’ hard. O’ course this young Sheppard showin’ up so good helped a lot and made the rest o’ them hustle.

I told Mr. Edwards, I says:

“Outside o’ first base, I wouldn’t trade this ball club for McGraw’s. These boys have got more spirit than any team I ever managed. They’re the kind that’s liable to upset the whole league. If we only just had a good reliable man on that bag, I’d almost guarantee to finish one-two-three.”

“And do you still think Hagedorn’s goin’ to join us?” the boss ast me.

“I certainly do,” I says. “I wouldn’t be surprised to get a wire from him any day.”

But we went along another week without hearin’ from Bill. Mr. Edwards kept gettin’ more and more nervous. And I guess I was beginnin’ to get nervous too.

About the second day o’ the third week down there, a letter come to me from Hagedorn’s wife. It hit me right in the eye.

Bill, she told me, didn’t know she was writin’ and would probably kill her if he found it out. She’d been beggin’ and beggin’ him all winter to take what we offered, and she’d just about had him coaxed when the papers begin printin’ the swell reports about Lahey. Those reports had took all the zip out o’ Bill. Instead o’ frightenin’ him into signin’ at our figure, they’d convinced him that he wasn’t wanted on our club. And Bill was worse than broke. He was over three months behind with the rent and the meat bill and so forth, and coal was a hundred dollars a ton, and they wasn’t no coal even at that price, and she was afraid he’d do somethin’ desperate. And she thought if I’d just send Bill a wire and tell him that we’d carry him as an extra man, or if I’d try and trade him somewheres where he could make some kind of a salary, he’d be so tickled that he’d come to us or go wherever we sent him at whatever price he could get. And she begged me to not tell anybody that she’d wrote.

Mr. Edwards had just left us to run down to Dallas for a few days. O’ course I wouldn’t of let him know about the letter anyway. But him bein’ away give me the idear o’ keepin’ Bill’s comin’ a secret. I was goin’ to surprise him by havin’ Bill blow in unexpected, because it was a cinch the old man’d be back before Bill could get there. So I didn’t wire Dallas, but just sent a telegram to Bill, sayin’, If you’ll sign for $4,000, first-base job is yours. Answer.

The answer come the same night. It said all right, that he’d join us the followin’ Thursday.

On Wednesday Mr. Edwards come back to the Springs. And that afternoon Charles C. Lahey give the funniest exhibition I ever seen on a ball field. The whole practice was a joke, because Gould and Berner and Marsh and the rest o’ them was laughin’ so hard they couldn’t do nothin’. But the windup come near not bein’ a joke. It’d of been a tragedy if Lahey wasn’t the awkwardest guy in the world.

We was tryin’ the double play, first base to second base and back. I hit a ball pretty close to the bag and it took a nice hop, so they wasn’t no chance for Charley to boot it. He pegged down to Berner, and then turned round and started lookin’ for his own bag. Berner took the throw and sent it back as fast as I ever seen a ball pegged. Well, sir, Lahey found out where first base was by trippin’ over it. But just before he tripped he turned his head to look for the throw. If he hadn’t tripped and went sprawlin’, that ball would of cracked him right in the temple, and if it had, good night! To show you how much Berner had on it, it hit the grandstand on the short hop and made a noise like somewheres in France.

“That’ll do, boys!” I hollered to them.

“We’ll quit. The express rates on caskets between here and Davenport is somethin’ fierce.”

I walked back to the hotel with Mr. Edwards. I never seen a guy so blue.

“He’s impossible,” he says.

“Never mind,” says I. “He won’t be with us long. One o’ these days his luck’ll desert him and he’ll get killed.”

“I think we’d better send for Hagedorn,” says the boss.

“Oh, no,” I says. “He’ll show up before long.”

“Yes,” says Mr. Edwards; “but he’d ought to be here right now to get used to playin’ with Gould and Berner. And I ain’t so sure he’ll show up, neither.”

“I’d like to make you a little bet,” I says. “I’d like to bet you five that we hear from him before the end o’ the week.”

“I’ll just take that bet,” says Mr. Edwards, “and I’ll be glad to pay if I lose.”

Well, knowin’ him pretty well, I didn’t hardly believe that. But I told him the bet was on.

The first train into the Springs from the North is supposed to arrive at nine in the mornin’ and it don’t hardly ever get in later than 3 p.m. On this Thursday it come at one thirty. I snuck down alone to meet it, and there was Bill. “Mighty glad to see you, Hagedorn,” I says.

“I’m glad to get here,” says Bill.

“You don’t need to work today if you don’t want to,” says I, “but we want you out there as soon as you feel like it.”

“Why, what’s happened to this wonderful Lahey?” says Bill.

“Not a thing,” I says; “but, as you pointed out, he’s a left-hand hitter, and we’re overloaded with ’em.”

“I suppose you’ll play him when they’s right-hand pitchin’ against us,” says Hagedorn.

“No,” I says, “I don’t believe in switchin’ on the infield. Still, you’ll have to keep hustlin’ to hold him on the bench. He’s one o’ the most remarkable first sackers in baseball.”

“I’m just as good as he is,” says Bill.

“You’ll have to show me,” I says.

“That’s just what I’m goin’ to do,” says Hagedorn.

“And how’s everything at home?” I ast him.

“Well, Frank,” he says, “it’s been a tough winter⁠—the toughest I ever put in. I’m in debt so far that it scares me to think of it.”

“Where was that $2,000 you had saved?” I says.

“I was just stringin’ you about that,” says Bill. “I never had a nickel saved. But $2,000 is just about what I’m behind.”

“Good lord, Bill!” I says to him. “What have you done, bought a limousine?”

“No, sir,” he says. “I ain’t bought nothin’ only clothes and food and not much o’ that. But I was way in the hole before, and just this week they’ve ran up about $200 more on me.”

“What for?” I ast him.

“Well, Frank,” he says, “the wife presented me with a little boy last Sunday mornin’. If it hadn’t been for that, and the way she worried about things, I’d of never been down here to sign for $4,000. It was a case of have to, that’s all.”

I’d left orders for the boys to be out for practice at a quarter to two, and I knew Mr. Edwards would be out there with ’em. I and Bill was pretty near to the hotel by this time, but I stopped him short.

“Bill,” I says, “you ain’t givin’ me no bull like that $2,000 fortune, are you?”

“No, Frank,” he says, “I’m tellin’ you the truth.”

“All right, Bill,” I says; “I’m takin’ your word. They’s a northbound local train leavin’ here at three bells. You go down and get aboard it and ride to Silver Creek. That’s a station about twenty miles up the line. They’s a hotel there, and that’s about all. You go there and stay till I send for you.”

“What’s the idear?” he says.

“You’ll find out later,” I says. “I just tell you now that it’s to your interest to do what I say.”

“I can’t go nowheres,” he says. “I’ve got just forty cents.”

“I’ll stake you,” says I, “and you’ll hear from me in three or four days.”

“But I want to get out there and see this here Lahey,” says Bill. “I want to get busy showin’ him up.”

“He’ll tend to that end of it himself,” I says. “But you’re on this ball club and I’m manager of it, and if you want to stick on this ball club you’ll obey the manager’s orders.”

So Bill took the local for Silver Creek and I beat it out to the orchard to see that nobody got killed.

I set down with the boss at supper that night.

“Mr. Edwards,” I says, “I’ve changed my mind about Hagedorn.”

“What do you mean?” he says.

“I mean that I think he’s through with us,” I says.

“But good lord!” says the boss. “We can’t get along without him.”

“Well,” says I, “we can get him by givin’ him $6,000.”

Mr. Edwards shook like he had a chill.

“Give in to him now!” he says. “When he’s tried to hold us up! And I thought you was so sure he’d come round.”

“I did think he would,” says I, “but I’m sure now that he won’t. He’s stuck this long, and he’ll stick forever. He’s gamer’n I figured.”

“But I’d rather lose another $18,000 than let him hold us up,” says the boss.

“Well,” I says, “that’s up to you. But you’ll lose the $18,000 all right, and maybe then some, if you don’t get him. Because without him on first base we’ll be the worst ball club in the league.”

Mr. Edwards didn’t say nothin’ more for maybe five minutes. Then he give up.

“I got a lot o’ confidence in you, Frank,” he says. “I’ll go by what you tell me. If you want to you can wire Hagedorn. Tell him we’ll meet his terms, and tell him to get here on the first train.”

“I think it’s the best thing to do,” I says. And I went out and pretended to send Bill a wire.

It takes two days and a half to get to the Springs from home. So I called Bill up at Silver Creek and had him blow into camp on the Sunday train. I met him and tipped him off. He fell all over himself thankin’ me and says he was goin’ to name the boy Frank. And then he made a request.

“Keep this a secret from my missus,” he says. “I want her to think that I got what I was after because I insisted on it. Because she kept tellin’ me all winter that I wouldn’t never get it and was a sucker to try.”

“Don’t worry,” I says; “I want it to be kept a secret from certain people myself, and I certainly ain’t goin’ to spill it to no woman.”

Mr. Edwards was on the walk in front o’ the hotel when I and Bill showed up.

“Well, Hagedorn,” he says, “you got what you wanted and I hope you’ll try and earn it.”

“I’ll earn it all right, Mr. Edwards,” he says, “and I’m mighty grateful to you for comin’ acrost.”

The boss turned to me.

“How about our little bet?” he says.

“What bet?” says I.

“You bet me five,” he says, “that we’d hear from Hagedorn before the week was over. And this is another week.”

“So you want me to pay you that five?” I ast him.

“I certainly do,” he says.

Well, I give him the five, and afterwards Bill told me he’d make that up to me as soon as he could. But I can’t accept it from him. I’d feel like I was takin’ candy from a baby, a baby named Frankie Hagedorn.

Ball-a-Hole

Riverside’s only got a nine-hole course, but they’ve bought some more land and by the end of this summer they’ll have eighteen holes. They’re planning a new clubhouse too. You know the other one caught fire and burnt down. This one’s just supposed to be temporary. When they get the new course done and the clubhouse built they expect to take in about a hundred more members; and then, of course, they’ll have to have some more of us kids.

By that time, though, I hope I’ll be doing something else. I wouldn’t keep ahold of this job now, only it gives me a chance to practice golf when there’s nobody on the course. I and Jake⁠—he’s the second oldest kid that’s caddying here⁠—him and I come out early Saturday mornings, and sometimes afternoons during the week when the men and women aren’t playing, and we go round together, for a nickel a hole sometimes. I’m a little better than him and I have to give him three strokes on the nine, and we break about even that way. I’ve made the nine holes once in forty-three already, and I’m only sixteen. Most generally I get round in about forty-eight or forty-nine. Jake’ll average round fifty or fifty-one. Mac, the pro, he’s an old crab. He wouldn’t try to learn us nothing. Besides, I think a fella’s better off learning by himself. Francis Ouimet started as a caddy and I guess nobody ever showed him anything. But, besides getting the chance to practice, I and Jake’s considered the best kids they got, and we make pretty good money⁠—twice as much as the younger kids get. The regular price is two bits for every nine holes, but fellas like Mr. Joyce and Mr. Davis and them, they always slip us fifteen cents extra and sometimes as high as thirty or forty. That’s outside of the two bits.

There’s a rule in the club that nobody can call up ahead of time and engage their caddy. They’re all supposed to take whoever they get when they get up here. We’re all supposed to stick round the shop, and when somebody’s ready to play Mac tells who shall caddy for them. But I and Jake work a kind of a system. When we see somebody walking to the first tee that takes good care of us, we get outside of the shop, where the guys can see us; and then they usually holler to Mac to send them Jake and I. And when some old tightwad or some crab shows up, Mac can’t find us with a search warrant. We’re gone⁠—that’s all.

When we make the best cleanup is when Mr. Joyce and Mr. Davis and Mr. McNally and Mr. Harper play together. They never shoot for less’n a dollar a hole, and sometimes it’s as high as five bucks. And they’re all fellas that likes to win; but when they get beat it ain’t never our fault, like with some of the crabs. And the fellas that cop most of the dough don’t never forget to remember Jake and I. Mr. Joyce win thirty dollars one day this spring, and he give I and Jake a five-spot to split between us. Believe me, when there’s any balls found laying loose round the course they belong to Mr. Joyce! And I’ve gone out in the river over my knees more’n once, chasing a new ball for him, when he happened to hook one on the seventh or eighth hole.

The other kids always are trying to fix it so’s they can go round with him and the rest of the live ones, and I and Jake sometimes feel like we were hogging it. But it ain’t our fault, is it, if they’d rather have us and ask Mac to let them? Fellas that does as much for the club as them, they’ve got a right to have the caddies they like.

Well, if they were all Mr. Joyces nobody’d have a kick coming. But, believe me, there’s a few guys in the club that’s so tight you could play on them with a drumstick! I’ve been round with some of them when I couldn’t get out of it, and it’s like pulling teeth to get them to come acrost with the regular pay they’re supposed to give us. There was one that used to come out from town last year, and he never had nothing less’n a twenty-dollar bill when it was time to settle up with his caddy. The first time he sprung that on me I said I couldn’t change it but the man in the clubhouse could. So this guy said he’d go in himself and get it changed. So he went in and stalled round half an hour, hoping I’d go home. I stuck, but it didn’t get me nothing. He was studying astronomy when he came out. And the next time I seen him he’d forgot all about it.

When I went round with him again and he hauled out his twenty, I said I thought I could break it, and before he could get it back in his jeans I copped it out of his hand and ran in the clubhouse.

I got it changed into a ten and a five and five ones. I gave him back nineteen dollars.

“It’s half a buck for eighteen holes,” I said. “There was eighteen holes today and eighteen last time, so it’s a dollar altogether.” And by the time he begun to argue I was on the way to the village.

He never took me after that, but I managed not to shed tears over it.

Then there’s the fellas that everything you do for them is wrong and spoils their game. If they’ve got a five-foot putt and you take the flag out, and they miss the putt by four or five feet, it’s “Why in hell didn’t you leave the flag alone?” And if they’ve got a mashie shot and you give them their mashie and they make a flivver of it, it’s “Why didn’t you give me my niblick, like I ast you to?” And if you stand over in the rough on the right side of the fairway when they’re driving, if they dub their drive it’s because you weren’t over on the left side.

And then there’s the guys that can’t remember how many strokes they’ve had, and they ask you. If you tell them the truth they’re as sore as a boil. What you’re supposed to do is lie a stroke. That saves them the trouble and disgrace of doing it themselves. All us kids were in the shop one week day, waiting for somebody to show, and we were talking things over; and Davy Schultz was crabbing because he never got to go round with one of the regular fellas. He said he’d drop dead if anybody ever slipped him more’n a dime extra. “You don’t go after them right,” I said to him. “If you handle them the proper way they’ll all come acrost.”

“You ain’t the only wise guy in the world,” he said to me. “I can handle them just as good as you, only I don’t get the ones that can be handled. Mac don’t never send me out with anybody but hard-boiled eggs.”

So I told him:

“I never saw the man yet that I couldn’t make him loosen up.”

So he said: “Well, there’s a pair of them right here in this club that if you can squeeze a dime out of either of them on the side, I’ll give you all I make in a week.”

So I ast him who they were. He said it was Mr. Perkins and Mr. Conklin. Mr. Perkins joined the club last fall and Mr. Conklin just came in this last spring already. He’s the kind that wants all the barbers to starve to death. Jake says he wears all that stuff on his chin to keep his Adam’s apple from insect pests and frostbites. He’s director of two or three banks downtown, and every time the schoolteachers can’t think of nothing else to talk about, they tell you to always be straight and honest and work hard, and you’ll turn out a second Mr. Conklin. Because he did it all himself. He didn’t even have his whiskers to start with. Mr. Perkins is a warder in one of the churches and gives talks to the young men’s meetings every other Friday night. He don’t play golf on Sunday, and he don’t play golf on Monday or Saturday on account of those two days being so close to Sunday. Jake says he don’t play golf on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, either. But, anyway, he’s got as much dough as all of Mr. Conklin’s banks, pretty near, and he don’t have to do nothing.

Well, up to the time Davy was telling his troubles I or Jake had never caddied for either one of these birds. We probably never would of, only we wanted to show Davy how good we were.

“They’re airtight,” he said to us. “You’d stand just as much of a chance of getting three hundred yards out of a spoon.”

“What do they go round in?” I ast him.

“Neither one of them ever plays more’n the nine holes,” Davy told us; “and if you add nine or ten strokes to the score they got, you’ll be closer to the right score than they are. Mr. Conklin’s speed’s about sixty-three, and Mr. Perkins made a fifty-nine once. It was even fifty the way he counted.”

“So they underestimate, do they?” I ast him.

“Do they!” Dave said. “Why, if Chick Evans had their system he could play this course four times in thirty-six! He’d hole out from every tee. All he’d need’d be one club and a good, sharp pencil.”

“Do they ever play together?” I ast him.

“No,” said Davy. “Mr. Perkins went round with Mr. Adams a couple of times, but Mr. Conklin likes his solitary.”

Well, I winked at Jake and we moseyed out together; and I was going to tell him my idear, but he beat me to it.

“We’ll get a bet with Davy,” he said. “We’ll bet him that I and you can squeeze real money out of the both of them. And we can do it easy if we can get them to play against each other.”

“That’s the whole thing,” I said. “You can work it better’n me. You lay for them and get them matched. The rest of it’s a setup.”

So the next day we brought it up again in the shop, and Davy made us the bet. It was his week’s earnings against ours. And it was understood that we weren’t to come right out and ask for something extra. We weren’t to do anything that was not legitimate⁠—begging, or anything like that. If they tipped us, it had to be of their own free will, without compunction.

It was about a week afterwards that Jake braced Mr. Conklin. He was practicing putts on the “clock.” Jake waited till he happened to sink a ten-footer.

“That was great, Mr. Conklin!” Jake said to him. “If you putt like that right along, I’m thinking Mr. Perkins would have to go some.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Conklin ast him.

“Maybe I oughtn’t to of said nothing,” Jake said to him. “But I overheard Mr. Perkins the other day telling Mac that he’d been watching you a couple of times, and he’d noticed you had some mighty bad habits, and he thought Mac ought to tell you about them. And then he said he wasn’t much of a golfer himself, but he hadn’t been at it nowhere near as long as you; but he could trim you three up on nine holes.”

“What does he go round in?” Mr. Conklin ast Jake.

“He’ll average about sixty,” Jake told him.

Then Mr. Conklin said:

“If that’s all the better he is, he’d have his troubles beating me even.”

“Why don’t you tackle him?” said Jake.

“I’d just as lief,” Mr. Conklin said. “But I ain’t going to suggest it.”

“You don’t have to,” Jake said to him. “The way to do is for you to be up here when he is⁠—he’s here any weekday afternoon except Mondays and Saturdays⁠—and you could just happen to be starting out when he is and when he saw you were alone he’d probably ask you if you didn’t want to go round with him.”

Mr. Conklin didn’t say no more; and the next day Jake went to work on Mr. Perkins.

“Mr. Perkins,” he said, “I seen that approach you made on the ninth. That was a pippin! You could give Mr. Conklin a pretty good battle now, if that’s the way you shoot all the time.”

“Conklin!” said Mr. Perkins. “I didn’t know he was very good.”

“I don’t know if he is or not,” Jake said. “But I heard him tell Mac that he’d been watching you, and he didn’t see how a man could keep on making the same mistakes without finding out what was the matter with him. He said somebody ought to tell you that you stood wrong and come back too fast, and he had half a notion to tell you about it himself, only he felt like you’d think he was fresh or something.”

So Mr. Perkins said:

“Well, if Conklin’s such a expert, how does it come he always plays alone?”

“He’d like to play with somebody,” said Jake, “but he don’t only get up here in the middle of the week, and you’re about the only fella on the course that ain’t hooked up with somebody else; and you always get an earlier start than him.”

So Mr. Perkins ast Jake what Mr. Conklin usually shot, and Jake told him he didn’t know for sure, but he thought he was round sixty for the nine holes.

The following afternoon Mr. Perkins showed up about one o’clock, like always; but he didn’t drive off till pretty near two.

You could see he was waiting for something. Finally he gave up and started out alone, with poor Davy carrying his bag.

But on Thursday Mr. Perkins hadn’t hardly more’n got into his playing clothes when Mr. Conklin’s big car showed up.

I said to Jake:

“Here’s where we’ve got them. You go out to the tee and help Mr. Perkins stall till Mr. Conklin’s ready.”

And I told Mac that Mr. Perkins and Mr. Conklin had ast specially for Jake and I to go round with them.

“Well, I’m willing,” Mac said. “It’s about time you two cinch bugs caddied for somebody besides the spendthrifts.”

“We’ll loosen them up,” I said.

“Yes,” said Mac; “you’ve got a sweet chance! They don’t think no more of a nickel than a caddy does.”

“Or a pro from Edinburgh,” I said.

And then I grabbed Mr. Conklin’s bag and went out to where Jake and Mr. Perkins was standing.

“Whose clubs?” Mr. Perkins ast me.

“Mr. Conklin’s,” I said. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

Now, Mr. Perkins knew whose clubs I had, all right. He’d seen Mr. Conklin go in the clubhouse; and besides, his and Mr. Conklin’s bags looked just alike and was different from everybody else’s. You can buy a pretty fair bag for five or six dollars. These two must of cost pretty near a dollar and a quarter apiece, and was easily worth more’n half that much.

“Mr. Conklin going round with you?” I said to Mr. Perkins.

“He can if he wants to,” said Mr. Perkins. “I’d just as lief go round alone.”

But he kept on waiting, and didn’t even tee his ball till Mr. Conklin showed up.

First thing Mr. Conklin said was to ask where Davy was at.

“Home sick,” I told him. “He got tipped pretty good yesterday and I guess he blew himself to candy.”

Then Mr. Perkins said:

“Hello, Conklin! Have you got a pardner?”

“No,” said Mr. Conklin. “I usually go it alone.”

“Well, I’ll shoot and get out of your way,” said Mr. Perkins.

“If you’re alone, too, we might as well go round together,” said Mr. Conklin.

“That suits me,” said Mr. Perkins. “I’m not very good, but I’ll try and make it interesting.”

“What do you shoot?” Mr. Conklin ast him.

“About sixty for the nine,” said Mr. Perkins.

“I guess we’re pretty near even,” said Mr. Conklin.

“Well,” said Mr. Perkins, “I suppose I’ll get the worst of it; but let’s play for a ball-a-hole.”

“You’ll beat me,” Mr. Conklin said; “but I’m willing.”

I dug down in the pocket of the bag for a ball. There were three of them. They all looked like they’d slept in the coal bin. One of them was almost round. Somebody’d mistook the other two for blackberries and bit a hunk out of them. I gave the best one a good scrubbing and got it so’s it was about caramel color and you could see the name on it. It was a Whizz: three for a dollar, and not so cheap, at that.

Well, they decided Mr. Perkins should have the honor, and he started off with a twenty-yard drive, right down the middle. Mr. Conklin put his hand over his whiskers so’s Mr. Perkins couldn’t see him smile, and then teed his Whizz. He took his stance with his kneecaps kissing each other and stood there wiggling his toes and elbows till he had all four of us nervous. Finally he swang, and away she went. Two hundred yards⁠—a hundred up and a hundred down.

Mr. Perkins said to him:

“You better try it again. I think you tee your ball too high.”

Mr. Conklin acted like he hadn’t heard him, and ast me for his brassy. The Whizz laid about six feet off the tee. Mr. Conklin’s knees kissed again, but he was too sore this time to take it slow. He whanged away the minute he was set and sliced her over to the right, into a mud-hole. Well, looking for that ball there was about like trying to find a drop of ink in a coal mine. Mr. Joyce or Mr. Davis wouldn’t of wasted a minute on it. But I’ll bet our search party worked half an hour before Mr. Conklin’d give up. Then I dug out one of the two he had left. First, I showed it to Jake, and he said:

“Anyway, he won’t have to slice this one. It’s been done already.”

I handed it to Mr. Conklin and watched close to see if he’d give himself a bad lie. He didn’t.

“Better take a mashie,” said Mr. Perkins. “The best dope is to play safe and get out on the fairway.”

So Mr. Conklin used his brassy again and pulled the best shot he made all day, sending her down past the bunker, just a good mashie pitch from the green.

Then Mr. Perkins took his brassy and in two more shots his ball was about ten yards behind Mr. Conklin’s. If he could of only got the distance with his ball that he did with the divots, he’d of been hole-high in three.

Jake said to me:

“They ought to follow my man round with a steam roller.”

I said:

“He could dig up twice as much ground if he’d use an iron.”

And Jake said:

“He ought to go out West somewhere and drill oil wells.”

Mr. Perkins ast for his cleek and we felt sorry for the people that live in Hong-Kong, but he topped her this time and she rolled into the ditch. Mr. Conklin was clubby and went to the same place with his mashie. The balls laid about a yard apart, with Mr. Conklin’s away. Now his and Mr. Perkins’ didn’t look no more alike than a watermelon and a motorcycle. But when Mr. Conklin got there, and found that his ball was about half buried in the ground, what does he do but pick it up to see if it’s his or Mr. Perkins’. And when he put it down again, he laid it on top of a little clump of weeds. With that lie and that distance, I could of pitched to the green with a carpet sweeper; but Mr. Conklin, using his mashie again, was still ten feet short yet. Mr. Perkins did pretty fair with his and stopped about eight feet from the can.

Mr. Conklin ast for a putter and drove acrost the green and ten feet off on the other side.

Jake whispered to me:

“That’s the club he ought to use off the tee.”

He shot again and was a good yard short of the hole. Mr. Perkins got to within half a foot and picked up his ball.

“I guess we halved it,” Mr. Conklin said, and picked up hisn.

Mr. Perkins made a holler. “Halved it nothing!” he said. “Even if I give you that putt you didn’t make, I got you beat a stroke, 6 and 7.”

So Mr. Conklin said:

“You took seven yourself. First, there was your tee shot; that’s one. Two brassies makes three. Then you went into the ditch; that’s four. You got on the green in five, and took two putts.”

So Mr. Perkins said:

“You better figure out your own strokes and I’ll tend to mine. You got two yards off the tee; then you sliced into the rough with your brassy. It took you two more to get into the ditch. Then you was short of the green in five, acrost the green in six, and about four or five feet from the cup in seven. If I concede that putt, you were down in eight; but I don’t know why I should concede it. You might of made it and you might not. But, anyway, I’m one up. I’ll leave it to the caddies.”

Jake spoke up: “I think Mr. Perkins won the hole.”

So I butted in and said I thought they halved it.

Then the argument begun all over. Finally Mr. Conklin gave in and admitted that Mr. Perkins had beat him, 6 and 7. So long as he was beat, what was the difference if he trimmed a stroke off both of their scores?

There was no use trying to clean the ball my man was playing with now, so I and Jake gave them their drivers and went over and stood near the fairway on the second, about fifty yards from the tee. They both sliced right in behind us.

“They don’t use any judgment,” said Jake. “If they want to underestimate, they’d ought to keep on opposite sides of the course.”

The rough where the two balls laid had been mowed three days before and Mr. Conklin took his brassy. He shot acrost the fairway and into the rough at the left. Mr. Perkins used a mashie and went farther into the rough on the right.

“Now,” I said to Jake, “they’re separated and can lie their heads off.”

And Jake said that we were sure to be called as witnesses on this hole.

So I ast him to let me win it, so’s to even up the match. So he said that when we got down near the green he’d hold up as many fingers as he thought Mr. Perkins would say he’d had strokes, and then I could fix up Mr. Conklin’s to suit.

Well, my man missed the ball entirely once, and the next time he dribbled it just out of the rough. Then he shut his eyes and made a pretty good brassy shot and got on the green with a mashie in six. I looked over at Jake and Mr. Perkins. They were hole-high, but still in the rough. They got out and onto the green, and Jake held up six fingers.

So I said to Mr. Conklin:

“Let’s see. You’ve shot five, haven’t you?”

“Let’s see,” he said. “Yes; that’s right-five.”

Mr. Perkins laid near us now, and he ast how many we’d had. Mr. Conklin told him five.

“Alike as we lay,” said Mr. Perkins.

They both went down in three more and agreed that the hole was a half, 8 and 8. But on the way to the third tee Jake told me that Mr. Perkins was six before he ever got out of the rough, and he’d figured that he wouldn’t dare cut it down more’n one stroke. I saw right there that I and Mr. Conklin were up against a tough proposition.

They sliced their drives again and Mr. Perkins landed in the uncut. Mr. Conklin would of, only there wasn’t enough force to his wallop. Mr. Perkins shot three times with a mashie and managed to get a little farther into the long grass.

“He’s good-hearted,” said Jake. “He’s got enough regard for the fairway to stay off of it.”

There isn’t much to the third hole, only distance. A good drive and a brassy and a pitch’ll get you onto the green, or pretty close to it. So I told Mr. Conklin. I said:

“All you got to do is stay on the course. If it takes you five to reach the green you’ve still got him trimmed yet. He won’t be out of the weeds in six.”

But Mr. Conklin, of course, didn’t want to take no unfair advantage; so, after gumming up two brassy shots, he took a midiron and sliced pretty near over to the fifth fairway. He lit where the grass was longest, and I could see another long hunt.

Jake left his man and came over to us.

“Have you lost your ball?” he ast me.

So I said:

“No. We’re looking for mushrooms.”

“What kind of a ball was it?” Jake ast.

“A Black Walnut,” I told him.

Mr. Perkins kindly consented to join the party and we lined up and marched back and forth all over the property; but nothing doing. Jake called me to one side and said:

“Have you looked in his beard yet?”

Finally Mr. Perkins got impatient and ast Mr. Conklin why he didn’t drop another ball. “There’s no sense to losing this one,” he said. “If my boy would keep his eyes open he’d know right where it was.”

Just then Jake stepped on a ball. It was a Major, Number 28, and pretty near new. Jake picked it up and ast Mr. Conklin if it was his. Mr. Conklin said it was. Then Mr. Perkins said:

“I thought you never used anything but a Whizz.”

“I got this one by mistake,” said Mr. Conklin. “I ast the salesman for a Whizz and he gave me this one. I didn’t find it out till I got home.”

So he tees her up on a tuft of weeds and goes clear to the green with a brassy.

Well, Mr. Perkins did some more mowing with his mashie, and finally gave up.

“You can have this hole,” he said. “You got a six to my seven. We’re all even.”

Seven! Say, the way this guy figured he must of thought he was eating breakfast at noon!

The fourth hole they call the Railroad. It runs along parallel with the tracks. It’s only about two hundred and fifty yards, but a hundred yards from the tee there’s a bunker clear acrost the course. And there’s a ditch over to the left, just this side of the tracks. And the green’s just short of the river bank. The main thing to do is clear the first bunker and it don’t make much difference if you slice a little. But if you hook you’re liable to go into the ditch, and that’s out of bounds.

Both of our men had been hitting them high off the tee so far; but of course when they had that bunker staring them in the face they topped their drives a little and smashed right into it. Then they took their mashies and lofted over to the left, into the ditch. We’d had some rain and it was pretty wet down there; so Jake and I stood on the edge a minute, hoping they’d tell us to never mind. Fine chance! The balls were both in sight and we had to go after them. We brought them up, along with some of the richest soil in Illinois.

Mr. Perkins ast what the rules were about counting a shot out of bounds; so Jake told him it cost you one stroke. So Mr. Perkins said that as long as they’d both done it, what was the use of counting it at all? So they both shot three from the edge of the fairway. They were to the green in six and their first putt left them about ten feet each from the can.

“Well,” Mr. Perkins said, “I’ve had six. You’ve had seven, haven’t you?”

I butted in before Mr. Conklin could answer.

“You’ve both had the same number,” I said, “whether it’s six or two hundred.”

Mr. Perkins gave me a sour look and putted to the left of the hole, and about four feet away.

“I’m down in eight,” he said; and he picked up his ball.

I expected my man to yelp; but he’d done the same thing on the first hole, so he kept his clam closed. And his putt, starting way over to the right, bumped into a pebble or something, and darned if it didn’t twist round and drop in the cup!

“There!” said Mr. Conklin. “I’m one up.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Perkins; “but you got to admit it was luck, pure and simple. The groundkeeper won that hole for you.”

“Well,” said Mr. Conklin, “you can’t blame him for not being on your side.”

All I can remember about the fifth and sixth was that it took us an hour to play them and Mr. Perkins only got off of the fairway once. After that, he stayed off of it. But my man, though he managed to keep in the course mostly, couldn’t seem to do anything to the ball, only bunt it. Between the four of us, we decided that both holes were halved in eights. To get that figure, I and Mr. Conklin only cut two off each hole, and I suppose Jake and Mr. Perkins did that well at least.

On the way to the seventh tee I said to Jake⁠—I said:

“Your fella’s got to cop one of these two next holes and the other one’s got to be halved, so’s we’ll be all even on the ninth. Then we’ll have a chance to blackmail them.”

Let me tell you, first, that these last three holes are some holes. The seventh is par three and a good player can usually make it in par. But it’s gosh-awful for a wild man! It’s only a hundred and thirty yards, but it’s right along the river bank; and if you pull the ball the least little bit, the fish get it. And to the right of the green there’s a clump of trees and a whole lot of long grass. Your tee shot’s got to be just about straight, or you’re in bad.

Most everybody drives with an iron here, and Jake and I handed them their cleeks. They were both scared not to take them; but, believe me, there ain’t a hole in the world that there’s any danger of either one of them over-driving it!

It was Mr. Conklin’s honor and he fed his Major 28 to a carp.

“Can you get that ball, boy?” he ast me.

“Not me!” I said. “I’m no U-boat.”

“Well, give me another,” he said; and I hauled out the one he had left, the blackest one of the Whizzes.

Jake whispered to me. He said:

“That’s the one he ought to of given the bath to.”

Mr. Perkins claimed it was his shot before Mr. Conklin drove again. So he teed his ball and sliced into the orchard.

“You oughtn’t to use a tee for an iron,” said Mr. Conklin; and then he laid his ball on the ground and sliced to the same place.

Well, we didn’t have to do any fancywork to let Mr. Perkins cop this hole. It took him only three to get out of the woods and onto the edge of the green. And, of course, Mr. Conklin was charged with one stroke for his fish ball and had to get clear of the rough in two to be even with Mr. Perkins. There was one thin thorn-apple tree in the line between the cup and where Mr. Conklin’s ball laid; so naturally he hit it right in the middle and it bounded back into the thickest part of the orchard. He was seven before he ever begun to putt. His nerves were a little shaky, and he finally went down in eleven, or only eight over par. Mr. Perkins holed out in six⁠—his count. They were all even and two to go.

“We’ll see that they halve the eighth,” said Jake.

Now about this eighth: If the seventh’s dangerous for a dub, the eighth’s a whole lot worse. It’s bad enough for the good ones. You can’t make a real long drive without going into the Grand Canyon, that lays about thirty yards this side of the green. And on the right, all the way down, there’s a regular jungle. On the left there’s the river again; and though it ain’t any closer to the fairway than it is on the seventh hole, still there’s no bushes or shrubbery to hide it from you. You can see it perfectly plain, and that makes you wonder whether a ball would make much of a splash if it lit in there; and the next thing you know, you find out for sure.

Our fellas got away to an even start. Mr. Perkins hooked into the middle of the river and Mr. Conklin sliced into the forest preserves. Mr. Perkins teed another ball, and this time he come about ten feet from the opposite shore. Then he made some remark that he never sprung at the Friday-night talks to the young men, and waited for Mr. Conklin to take another shot. But Mr. Conklin couldn’t see it that way. He said he thought we could find his first one.

“How about it, boy?” he ast me.

“It’s gone,” I told him.

“The Woodmen of the World couldn’t never locate that baby!” said Jake.

“Well,” said Mr. Conklin, “I’ll have to borrow a ball.” And he looked toward Mr. Perkins.

But Mr. Perkins was admiring the ripples that his last plunger had stirred up. So I dug down in my pocket and pulled one out.

“Here,” I said. “Here’s one that I’ll sell you for twenty cents.”

“Twenty cents!” said Mr. Conklin. “Why, it’s secondhand. I couldn’t play with that one.”

“It’s the oldest I’ve got,” I said. “After you’ve driven it into a couple of ditches you won’t know the difference between it and your Whizzes.”

Well, he started to argue and I started to put the ball back into my pocket; and then he said he’d take it and settle after the game. So I gave it to him and it seemed to bring him luck. Anyway, he managed to lift it out to the middle of the fairway, pretty near a hundred yards down the course. Mr. Perkins’ third attempt was too close to the woods for comfort, but it was playable.

“Now go easy,” I said to my man. “You’re a stroke better off than he is. Try and run her up to the edge of the ditch on this one, and next time you can pitch onto the green. Take a mashie,” I told him.

But no! He insisted on using his brassy, and the ball scooted along the ground and plump into the bottom of the Canyon. And Mr. Perkins, with a midiron, managed just to clear the ditch and stop on the high ground this side of the green.

I and Mr. Conklin beat the other two to the gully, and there was our ball, laying in about two inches of water, at the bottom of the bank that’s away from the green.

So Mr. Conklin said:

“I can’t play it there. What am I going to do?”

“You can pick it up and toss it back on top of the bank,” I told him. “It’ll cost you one stroke.”

He looked round to see how close Mr. Perkins was. Then he looked at his ball again. Then he said:

“If she only just lay out of the water, on the other side, I could lift her onto the green with a mashie or niblick.”

And then he looked at me.

Well, I can take a hint, and I didn’t have any hesitation about pulling rough stuff on Mr. Perkins. Warder or no warder, he’d been pretty raw himself. So I fished the ball out of the creek and tossed it to the other side, from where it was a pipe to loft it to the green⁠—that is, provided you hit it. Mr. Conklin missed it the first time, and as Jake and Mr. Perkins were getting pretty close to us he made his next attempt in a hurry. He connected, but didn’t get under the ball good, and it just did manage to roll up to the top of the bank and stop alongside of Mr. Perkins’.

Mr. Perkins ast us how many we’d shot.

“Let’s see,” said Mr. Conklin. “How many is it, boy?”

“Let’s see,” I said. “There was your first tee shot, into the woods; then your second tee shot; then your brassy in the ditch, and your pitch out. Four, altogether.”

Mr. Perkins looked kind of suspicious. He said:

“I thought I saw you miss one swing in the ditch.”

“Miss one!” said Mr. Conklin. “Of course I did. But it was practice.”

“Well, then,” said Mr. Perkins, “we’re alike as we lay. I’ve had four strokes without any practice.”

So I said:

“I don’t see how you could put two balls so close together in the river without some practice.”

“You’re too fresh!” said Mr. Perkins. “This is the last time you’ll caddy in a game I’m in.”

So I said: “I knew that the minute we left the first tee.”

They were both nervous now. While Mr. Conklin was getting ready to approach, I was scared to death that his knees would knock each other out and maybe cripple him for life. He finally dribbled his ball six feet, and when Mr. Perkins accidentally approached to about four feet from the can I thought we were gone. We were still off of the green yet. Mr. Conklin took his putter and stopped five feet from the cup. He shot again and missed by a foot. Mr. Perkins could cop the hole by going down in three putts from four feet away. The idear got the best of him and pretty near choked him to death. He didn’t have anything for his Adam’s apple to hide behind, and I could see it bobbing up and down like one of those there bell buoys. His arms were shaking so that he couldn’t control his club, and he hit the ball while he was still trying to aim. Then he leaned over it again and this time he was all right, except his direction and distance. The ball stopped off to one side, behind Mr. Conklin’s and about a foot farther away.

“I’ve got you stymied,” said Mr. Conklin. “I’ll putt and get out of your road.”

But Mr. Perkins leaned over and picked up both balls.

“We’ll halve the hole,” he said. “We’re both down in seven.”

Seven’s his favorite number, I guess.

Mr. Conklin thought he had a kick coming and started to say something, but Mr. Perkins was walking off the green. If they’d both putted it out I bet neither one of them would of gone down in less’n sixteen, the way they were wabbling.

Our last hole’s a funny one. You can’t see the green from the tee on account of what we call the Airline. It’s a kind of a hill, about fifteen or twenty feet high, that runs all the way acrost the course, thirty yards from the tee. On both sides of it there’s long grass and marsh, and everything else; and over to the right there’s another part of the jungle that you’re liable to get into on the eighth.

After you leave the eighth green the caddies always give the guys their drivers, and then go up and stand on top of the Airline, so’s they can see where the drives light. When a man has played the hole a few times and gets to know it, he can drive for it just as accurate as if he could see the green. The distance is only about two-fifty, and Mac’s often made it in three, and once in a while in two. He can drive right on the green once in five or six times.

I and Jake left our men and took the shortcut through the woods to the top of the Airline. Jake said:

“There’s no use of us going up there. They’ll both flivver and fall short.”

I ast him if he had anything on his bird.

“Have I!” he said. “Say, when he was laying against the woods on the eighth, before that midiron shot, he kicked the ball five feet toward the middle of the course, so’s he could get a real whack at it. And, at that, he whiffed before he belted it.”

“Don’t forget to remind him of that,” I said.

“Do you think I’m Davy?” said Jake.

It was Mr. Perkins’ honor, if you could say that about him. Anyway, he shot first and topped into the rough at the left, short of the hill. Mr. Conklin made just as good a drive, and they laid close together. We ran down to give them their mashies.

“Now is our chance!” I whispered to Jake.

“You start,” he said.

So, while I was changing my man’s clubs, I said kind of offhand:

“Play easy now. Be sure you hit the ball. You remember, when we were in the ditch on the eighth⁠—”

He had a coughing spell and I waited till he was through with it. Then I begun again:

“When you’re trying to loft a ball up over something you’re liable to be nervous and miss it entirely. You did it on⁠—”

That’s as far as I got. He didn’t know what to say; but he had to say something. So he ast me to give him his niblick instead of a mashie.

I said:

“I wouldn’t change if I were you. It was a niblick you tried to get out of the ditch with, on the eighth, and⁠—”

He interrupted me.

“Say, boy,” he said; “I’m forgetful sometimes. Before we wind up, I better settle with you, or I’m liable to walk off without doing it at all.”

“Go ahead and shoot,” said Mr. Perkins. “I’ve got to be getting home.”

“I’m going to settle with the boy here first,” said Mr. Conklin, and he dropped his club and begun going through his pockets.

He came up with a two-dollar bill.

“It’s a quarter a round, ain’t it?” he ast me.

“Yes, sir,” I said; “and the ball I gave you is twenty cents. You’ll find that’s a mighty good ball. It don’t even hurt it to lay in the water, like when we were⁠—”

He interrupted me again.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I owe you forty-five cents. This is the smallest I’ve got; but it don’t make any difference. I guess you can find some use for the rest of it.”

And he slipped me the two-spot.

It took them two more apiece to get over the Airline and into the marsh on the other side. They laid ten feet apart, with Mr. Perkins away. His ball was in a bad spot. There was weeds, a bunch of them, right behind it, and you were lucky to hit it at all. If you did hit it you wouldn’t have any force after cutting through the weeds.

“You got a rotten lie,” said Jake, so’s we could all hear him. “I should think you could kick it away from those weeds to where you could get a crack at it.”

“Kick it away!” said Mr. Perkins. “That’s against the rules.”

So Jake said:

“Why, don’t you remember when you laid next to the woods⁠—”

Mr. Conklin wasn’t the only one with a bad cold.

“You’re even worse off now,” said Jake, “than when you were laying against those trees on the eighth. And then⁠—”

Mr. Perkins had heard aplenty. He went up to Jake, pretending to look in the bag for another club or something. And when he moved back to his ball again to shoot, Jake was putting the day’s receipts in his pocket.

Whether Mr. Perkins was mad or not I don’t know; but he cut through those weeds with that mashie as though he’d been saving up for this shot all afternoon. And, believe me, he got a whale of a shot, the ball carrying pretty near to the green and rolling onto it!

I thought to myself “It’s good night to my man!”

But maybe he was sore too. Or maybe he’d just come to realize how bad he needed a new ball. Anyway, he pulled one pretty near as good as Mr. Perkins’, stopping just off of the green.

“What’s come over them?” I whispered to Jake.

“They ain’t muscle-bound no more,” he said. “They’ve both loosened up.”

Mr. Conklin approached and went six or seven feet past the cup. Mr. Perkins was quavering again, and he stopped about the same distance short. He was away. He already had his putter in his hands, but he was too scared to know if it was a golf club or a monkey wrench. What did he do but stick it into the bag and haul out his spoon, the first time he’d touched it all day!

“What are you going to do with that?” Jake ast him.

And then the poor goop came to and looked at it.

“I’ve played too hard,” he said, kind of half smiling. “Conklin, what do you say if we call it square?”

“I’m willing,” said Mr. Conklin; and you bet he was!

Neither one of them could have hit their ball in three putts.

“We’ll call this hole halved in fives,” said Mr. Perkins. “And-let’s see: As near as I can figure, that gives us both a medal score of fifty-four apiece.”

“He means,” said Jake to me, “that their score’s fifty-four apiece after they’ve meddled with it.”

We took their bags and started for the shop.

“How much did you get?” I ast Jake.

He told me a dollar and a half.

“But I guess we earned it,” he said. “We’ve been out three hours.”

So I said:

“Davy can have them after this.” And then I happened to think of the bet we’d made him. “Say, Jake,” I said, “he’s just a kid and don’t know how to handle these fellas. He’ll learn when he’s older. It don’t seem right for us to take advantage of him and collect that dough.”

“No,” said Jake. “Let’s show him the proceeds and tell him the bet’s off.” And then he said: “Say, my old man told me if I saved up twenty-five dollars between now and Christmas he’d give me ten to put with it. What do you think about us both taking these geezers’ money and putting it in some bank?”

“I’m with you,” I said⁠—“only the bank won’t be one of Mr. Conklin’s.”

Gas, Oil and Air

In pretty near every magazine these days, they’s advertisers that tells you you’re a sucker to keep on workin’ for what your employers pays you, and why don’t you buy our correspondence course in somethin’ or other and soon you’ll be makin’ from $5,000 to $5,000,000 a year, and so forth. And they print a picture of Adolph Klauss, from Ligonier, Indiana, that slaved for years keepin’ books for the Elite Grocery and finally got hep to himself and took our course, and now look at him! General manager o’ the Peekskill Prune Company at an annual pittance o’ fifty thousand per year, not includin’ tips.

I’m not knockin’ these birds. They’s no question but that a man that’s goin’ along in a rut should ought to get out of it and get into another one, and he can learn how to do it by subscribin’ to one o’ these courses. They’re pretty reasonable, too, I guess. But still, they do cost some money, and the average man in a rut ain’t got it to spare.

Well, I’ve found a lucrative profession that you can go into without payin’ for lessons or wastin’ time on ’em. Anybody in the world can be a mechanic in a garage. You don’t have to know nothin’.

All you got to do is give your conscience a sleepin’ potion and borrow a pair of overalls.

The reason I got a car lives out in Hyde Park, but she’s thinkin’ about leavin’ there. Her name’s Alice. I ain’t alone in considerin’ her the greatest girl that ever lived; at least, they’s been others.

One o’ them was George Boles. His old man’s a plumber, so George never had to worry. His father even give him a chummy roadster last Christmas.

I and Alice was brought up in the same neighborhood. I’ve knew her ever since she was a foot high, and always liked her. After my people moved out on the West Side, and I wasn’t able to see her more’n once a week, I begun to realize that she was somethin’ more to me than just a lifelong friend; in fact, that she was more to me than any girl I ever seen. To get from where we moved to, to her house, you got to take one elevated and transfer to another and then walk about a mile. The trip back and forth uses up about half o’ the evenin’ and they’s nothin’ pleasant connected with it. So when I tell you that I made it once a week, you can see I was fond of her; especially if you stop and think that I didn’t get home from the office till after seven and I had to be there at seven a.m.

It was along in February that Alice met Boles at a dance. That was on a Tuesday night, and when I went out to see her on the Friday, Boles was amongst those present.

I and him was in love with each other from the start⁠—like a couple o’ strange gamecocks. On this evenin’ when we was introduced, Alice had to do all the talkin’ while us two set there and sized each other up. About one o’clock she give unmistakable signs that she longed for the hay. Boles had been waitin’ for me to go, and I’d been waitin’ for him to do the same thing. When I finally seen how tired Alice was, I give up and beat it. He come away soon after. I know because him and his chummy roadster passed me before I’d walked two blocks. The roadster wasn’t feelin’ chummy enough to pick me up and ride me to the elevated.

The next day I called her up.

“Alice,” I says, “my visit with you last night wasn’t what I’d call a complete success. You know, I hate crowds.”

“Well,” she says, “come out some evenin’ when they’s less traffic.”

“How about this evenin’?” I ast her.

“Nothin’ doin’,” she says. “I’m goin’ out for a ride, with Mr. Boles.”

“Tomorrow evenin’, then,” says I.

“I’m afraid not tomorrow evenin’, neither,” she says. “I’m goin’ downtown to a show, with Mr. Boles.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” I says.

She acted kind o’ fussed.

“No,” she says. “You see, Mr. Boles is comin’ out to dinner and then he’s goin’ to take Mother and Sis and I for a ride and stay to supper, and then the show.”

“Will he be out for breakfast Monday mornin’?” says I.

“Don’t be sarcastical, Charley,” she says. “If you really want to see me, I think I can spare Tuesday evenin’.”

“I can’t,” I says, and slammed up the receiver.

The peeve lasted till Tuesday mornin’. Then I got over it and phoned again.

“If you can still spare this evenin’,” I says.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “but I’m goin’ over on the North Side to see Julia.”

“With Mr. Boles?” says I.

“Well, yes, if you must know,” she says.

One o’ the salesmen down to the office told me that the best car he knowed of that cost less than $1,000 was the Swift Six.

“But you can’t afford no car,” he says.

“I know it,” says I, “but I can’t afford to not have one, neither.”

“Have you got the money to pay for it?” he ast me.

“No,” I says. “I got $400 in the savin’s bank, besides a month’s pay.”

“Well,” he says, “I know the boss o’ their Chicago office, and if you insist, I can get him to leave you take the car for $400 down and pay the balance in six months or so.”

“Go ahead,” I says.

So the next day⁠—it was the first o’ March⁠—I become a motorist.

The Swift Six people was mighty nice to me. Besides the car, they give me a hand pump for the tires, and five gallons o’ gasoline, and a set o’ tools that I didn’t know what any o’ them was for, and couldn’t of used ’em if I had.

“Go easy with her,” they says, “till the weather moderates. It don’t help a car to break it in in the cold.”

So I just run her up and down the West Side boulevards a few minutes every night, for practice, and waited for the papers to prophesy fair and warmer.

Well, I mastered the art o’ drivin’ and still they wasn’t no signs o’ Spring, so I decided to not wait no longer. One Friday noon I called Alice up. It was the first time I’d talked to her for pretty near two weeks.

“What are you doin’ Sunday?” I ast her.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe I’ll take a ride.”

“That’s just what you’re goin’ to do,” says I. “But you’re goin’ to take it with me.”

“What do you mean?” she says.

“A friend o’ mine’s got a new car,” I told her, “and he’s goin’ to take you and I up on the North Shore.”

“That’ll be grand!” she says. “But will you be sure and get here by one o’clock?”

“Why?” I says.

“Because I want to be gone before Mr. Boles comes,” she says. “He’s got a habit o’ comin’ round every evenin’, and on Sunday afternoons and he’s so persistent that it’s hard to refuse him. He’ll want me to go ridin’ with him, and I’d a whole lot rather be gone before he comes than have to explain why I can’t go.”

“I’ll be there at noon,” says I, “and if you ain’t ready I’ll wait for you.”

So on Saturday morning, on the way to work, I drove Mr. Swift Six down lookin’ for a garage to get him all primed up for my first real trip. I’d read the ads of this Great East Auto School where they says everything’s half price ’cause the students does the work, only perfect under the supervision of expert teachers. So in I bobs, it bein’ handy.

“Fill it up with gas,” I says, “and see if it needs oil, and that left rear tire looks like it could stand a little air. How soon can you get through with it?”

“In about twenty minutes,” says the guy.

“All right,” I says. “Make it as fast as you can.”

I didn’t have no intention o’ callin’ for it till evenin’, but I wanted to be sure.

It was pretty near seven o’clock when I come to take it out. A different student guy was on the job.

“What can I do for you?” he ast me.

“Nothin’,” says I. “Just show me where my car is and I’ll get it out o’ your way.”

“What car is it?” he says.

“A new Swift Six,” says I.

“I don’t remember seein’ it,” he says.

“Oh, yes. That’s the boat that Jerry took out.”

“What for?” I says. “He’s got no right to go joy-ridin’ in my machine.”

“He ain’t joy-ridin’,” says the guy. “He took it out for a test. Somethin’ was poundin’.”

“Nothin’ was poundin’ when I brought it in this mornin’,” I says.

“You’re new at the game, ain’t you?” he says.

“Yes,” says I.

“Well, then, you probably wouldn’t notice when somethin’ was wrong,” he says.

“When’s he comin’ back with it?” says I.

“He’d ought to be back now,” says the guy.

So I waited till ten minutes to eight and then in come Jerry with my Swift Six. She was hittin’ on all but five cylinders.

“What have you done to my car?” I says.

“Me? Nothin’,” he says. “But it’s in pretty bad shape. They’s a lot o’ carbon and she needs grease and the right front wheel acts like it had a defective bearin’.”

“That’s ridiculous,” says I. “The car’s only a couple o’ weeks old.”

“I don’t care how old it is,” says Jerry. “An automobile don’t have to be old to get somethin’ the matter with it, no more’n a person. Look at babies. Just because they’re only babies, that don’t prevent ’em from havin’ colic, does it?”

“I won’t argue with you,” says I. “What I want to know is how soon you can get this machine fixed up?”

“By tomorrow mornin’,” says Jerry.

“That won’t do,” I says. “I got to have it by midnight tonight.”

“Well, I guess we can let you have it then,” he says, “but we’ll have to hustle.”

“I’ll drop in at midnight,” says I, and beat it home. I’d told him midnight so’s to be sure she’d be ready by eleven o’clock Sunday mornin’.

I went back right after breakfast. Still another fella was on the floor.

“I come for that new Swift Six,” I says.

“I haven’t seen nothin’ of it,” says he.

“You’re a fine bunch,” says I. “I brought the car in here yesterday mornin’ with nothin’ the matter with it and now they been workin’ on it over twenty-four hours and lost it besides.”

“Oh,” says this guy, “is that the car that we had to recharge the batteries on it?”

“No,” says I, “this here car’s pretty near new.”

“It’s the same one,” says the fella. “The batteries was dead and we’re rechargin’ ’em now.”

“Let’s see the car you’re talkin’ about,” I says, and he took me back and pointed it out to me.

It was mine.

“Can you tell me,” I says, “how it comes that the batteries can die on a brand new car?”

“Sure,” he says. “The batteries is supposed to charge themself while you run, and you ain’t used the car enough to let ’em do it.”

“How long before they’ll be recharged?” I ast him.

“About three hours,” says he.

“I can’t wait,” says I.

“O’ course,” he says, “you could take it now, the way it is, but you ought to bring it back and let us finish the batteries.”

“That’s what I’ll do,” says I. “You can turn the juice off.”

So he disconnected the charger or whatever you call it, and I jumped in the seat to back her out. I pushed the starter down, and down she stayed.

“See!” he says. “She’s as dead as Napoleon.”

“What am I goin’ to do?” I ast him. “I got to drive out on the South Side.”

“They’s nothin’ to prevent you from crankin’ her,” he says. “I’ll turn it over if you want me to.”

“That’s mighty friendly of you,” I says. So he turned it over and sure enough, the engine begun to hum. I put her in reverse and pressed down the accelerator. They wasn’t no response. I pressed down harder and harder and harder, and finally all the way down. Nothin’ doin’. Then I took my foot off, but the pedal stayed down.

“Here!” I says. “What’s happened now?”

The guy leaned over and looked at the pedal.

“Turn your dash light on,” he says.

Well, I turned the dash light switch without no results. This scared me into tryin’ the whole lightin’ system. Nowheres did I get a rise.

“You’re in tough luck,” says the mechanical genius. “Your starter won’t work and your accelerator won’t work and you got no lights. Looks like the South Side trip was off.”

“You think it does?” says I. “Well, listen: I’m goin’ to make it if I have to be towed. And between now and eleven o’clock, you got to have this car so’s it’ll run.”

“I can’t promise,” he says. “They’s a lot of other rush jobs round here.”

“They ain’t no job that’s rusher than this,” says I.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “I’ll do the best I can. Nobody can do better than that.”

“You certainly pull some original remarks,” says I. “Now, get busy! Because I’m comin’ back here at eleven o’clock, and if you ain’t ready for me they’ll be trouble.”

“If they wasn’t no trouble,” he says, “they wouldn’t be no garages.”

“Good!” says I. “You can pull cute ones when you try.”

I and eleven o’clock arrived at the same time.

“All set!” says the fella when he seen me come in. “I’ve even got the starter workin’.”

“How about the accelerator?” says I.

“It’s OK,” he says. “It was just disconnected.”

I climbed in, or started to, and come within a ace o’ breakin’ a leg or somethin’. The floor board was missin’ and they wasn’t nothin’ but Nature and machinery between me and the ground. I happened to be hangin’ on to the seat and the dash with my hands or it’d of been good night.

“Well!” says the mechanic, lookin’ astounded. “Somebody’s ran off with your floor board. Oh, yes, I remember,” he says. “I took it out when I was monkeyin’ with the clutch.”

“Why was you monkeyin’ with the clutch?” I ast him.

“It seemed to stick,” he says. “It’s all right now.”

“And where’s the floor board?” I says.

“It can’t be very far away,” says he. “I ain’t been out o’ the place, so I couldn’t of carried it nowheres.”

At 11:20 he found the floor board. At a quarter to twelve, he had it squeezed into place. At five minutes to one, I pulled up in front of Alice’s, just behind the chummy roadster.

Alice answered the doorbell.

“Where’s your friend?” she ast me.

“Out in the car,” says I.

“Bring him in,” she says. “I won’t be ready for five or ten minutes.”

“He never goes in anywheres,” I told her. “He’s an outdoor bug.”

“Well,” she says, “I’ll hurry as fast as I can. But Mr. Boles is here and it don’t seem right to dash off and leave him.”

“Why not?” I says. “He’s just like one o’ the family.”

“He’s no such a thing,” says she. “But we all like him because he’s such a gentleman and so good about takin’ us out for rides.”

“I guess,” I says, “that a man’s got to have a machine to make a hit with you.”

“It does help,” she says, laughin’. “But I do like some people for themself; you, for instance; that is, when you’re not mean and sarcastical.”

“If I had a car, though,” says I, “you’d like me a whole lot better.”

“O’ course,” she says, laughin’ again. “Why, I’d like you enough to marry you.”

“Do you mean that?” says I.

“Certainly,” she says, and led me into the house.

Mr. Boles was settin’ on the lounge in the livin’ room.

“Don’t get up,” I says to him. It was like tellin’ Mr. Bryan not to get stewed.

Alice left us together while she went to put on her things. If I had a nickel for every word that was spoke, I’d ask you for carfare.

When she come back, he says:

“I guess I’ll stay and talk to your mother a while. How soon do you expect to be home?”

“That’s up to Charley,” she says.

“Never,” says I.

And I left him to chew on that.

Alice pretty near fainted, when I sprung my surprise. “Why, Charley Graham!” she says. “Where did you get it?”

“I forget now,” says I. “Kresge’s or Woolworth’s.”

“And can you drive it?” she ast me.

“I don’t know,” I says. “When I come here from home today, I brought it in my pocket, on the elevated.”

For some peculiar reason, the starter worked. We was soon tearin’ northwards, twelve miles an hour. It was a swell day, and the first Sunday that had been really decent. The boulevards was jammed with cars, and I’ll admit I was nervous. I guess Alice was, too, but she was game enough to keep it to herself.

But the only danger was that somethin’ would hit us from behind, and nothin’ did.

I’m gettin’ so now that I can talk when I drive; then I was scared to open my mouth. Alice made a couple o’ starts about the weather, but her heart wasn’t in it. What she wanted to say was “Look out!” or “Be careful!” and I liked her all the better for not sayin’ it.

At five p.m., we’d got as far as Lake Forest, havin’ drove forty miles in a fraction under four hours.

“My! It’s pretty out here,” says Alice. “I wisht I could stay here a while.”

She got her wish.

The Swift Six liked Lake Forest, too. Between five and dark, I done nothin’ but crank and cuss, crank and cuss. When the daylight was gone, I’d lost some o’ my independence, and I stopped a guy that was goin’ past.

“Mister,” I says to him, “what I know about automobiles you could write on the back of a small flea. Will you see if you can spot the trouble with this masterpiece o’ human ingenuity?”

He looked her all over.

“For one thing,” he says, “your left rear tire is down.”

“But that wouldn’t keep me from startin’, would it?” I ast him.

“No,” he says, “but I thought I’d mention it before I forgot it. It’s another thing that keeps you from startin’. You’re out o’ gasoline!”

Who that guy was I don’t know. But if he ever runs out o’ cigarettes, I’ll loan him the rollin’s. First he drove to the nearest garage and brought us back enough gas so’s we could get there and fill our tank. Then he blowed up the tire with his engine drove pump. (They wasn’t nothin’ the matter with it, only the valve was loose.) And finally he rode ahead of us to the garage, so’s we’d be sure and find it.

“Alice,” I says, when he’d left us, “there’s the best fella I ever met.”

“I know one I like better,” says she.

“Don’t tell me it’s Boles,” I says.

“I won’t tell you nothin’,” she says. “I ain’t goin’ to bother you while you’re drivin’ ”

“But I want to hear it,” I says, and I stopped the Swift Six in the middle o’ the road.

“Well,” she says, “I always like people that likes me. And anybody that likes me well enough to go head over ears in debt to buy a car, because he thinks he’ll make good with me that way⁠—well⁠—”

Well.

I hadn’t kissed her more’n twenty-nine times when we was interrupted. The brightest lights I ever seen was shinin’ right in our face. And the guy behind the lights was George Boles.

“I’ve found you,” he says, runnin’ up beside us. “Your mother’s worried to death.”

“What for?” says Alice.

“Because you didn’t come home,” says Boles.

“Didn’t Charley tell you that I was never comin’ home?” says Alice. “We thought o’ course you’d tell mother.”

“Now,” I says, “we’ll have to go there and tell her ourself.”

It’s a good thing we telephoned her from Evanston. Because, owin’ to the fact that I wasn’t sure of the road and that my drivin’ was bein’ seriously interfered with, it wasn’t so darn far from breakfast time when we landed.

The old lady didn’t take it very hard.

“All I wonder,” she says, “is what you’re goin’ to live on.”

“Charley makes enough,” says Alice, “and o’ course our furniture will be all paid for.”

“What with?” I ast her.

“Whatever you can get for your car,” she says.

I was lucky in findin’ the whole school force in that evenin’. “Listen,” I says, to the one I’d seen first, “when I brought this ship in Saturday, what did I say I wanted done?”

“How do I know?” says he.

“Oh, I forgot,” I says. “O’ course you don’t know. I told you,” I says, “to pump up the left rear tire and to give me some gas and oil. I didn’t tell you to kill my batteries or take out my floor board or monkey with my clutch or gum up my cylinders or put my starter on the hummer or douse my lights. I just wanted gas and oil and air, them three.”

“And didn’t you get gas and oil and air?” says the one they called Jerry.

“I did not,” says I, “and you know it.”

“Well,” says Jerry, “I’ll tell you why: Pumpin’ a tire or fillin’ a tank with gasoline or pourin’ in oil, all that stuff’s a cinch; anybody can do it. But if we don’t take a few cars apart and put ’em together again, why, how’ll we ever learn?”

“And are you goin’ to charge me for the job?” I says.

“Only twenty dollars even,” says Jerry. “That’s twenty-five hours o’ labor at eighty cents an hour.”

“Boys,” I says, “I ought to murder all three of you, and the unwritten law’d acquit me. But I’m feelin’ too good.

“And besides, boys,” I says, “you’ve got me out o’ the rut. No more will I strain my eyes and benumb my brain with columns on columns o’ figures. From now on, I’m a carefree mechanic.”

The Yellow Kid

The Last Night

Jay Arnold, being a resident of Chicago and not stone deaf, knew there was a war somewhere in Europe. He had heard also that the United States had gone or was going into it. But until the twenty-ninth day of June, this year of so-called grace, he didn’t care. For Mr. Arnold was a man of simple tastes⁠—rye and water all morning, a seat in the bleachers all afternoon, rye and water all evening and then eight or nine hours of melodious sleep⁠—and the tumult Over There had not interfered a bit with his daily program of innocent pleasure.

The gentleman’s reading was confined to the sporting pages of the morning papers and “Today’s Results” in the evening sheets. It was simply tough luck that he had to sit, on his way gameward this blizzardy June day, beside one of those born genials to whom proximity is a formal introduction and an excuse for opening up.

“Looks,” said this fluent soul, “like as if we’d soon be bone dry.”

“Oh, I guess not for ten or a dozen years,” said Mr. Arnold.

“Years, nothing!” the other ejaculated. “It’s liable to be all off tomorrow morning.”

Mr. Arnold scrutinized the stranger. He looked sober.

“Where do you get that stuff!” said Mr. Arnold.

“In the morning paper. I seen an article this morning where the fella says Wilson’s to have the whole say and if he says dry, dry she is.”

“What fella says that?” asked Mr. Arnold.

“He signed his name, but I forget it,” replied our hero’s seat-mate. “It’s the fella that writes the articles from Washington, DC.”

“They wasn’t no game in Washington yesterday!” And Mr. Arnold smiled triumphantly.

“This ain’t got nothing to do with a game,” said the other. “This guy ain’t the baseball-article writer. He pulls the stuff about Wilson and the Senate and Congress⁠—deep stuff.”

“Those fellas are crazy,” Said Mr. Arnold. “Besides, you probably misread it wrong.”

“I guess I can read!” said his companion peevishly.

“But listen,” said Mr. Arnold: “The President of the United States ain’t the king of the world. He can’t vote the country dry without Congress and the people having their say.”

“He can in war-times. He can do anything he feels like in war-times.”

“What’s the war got to do with the liquor business?”

“A whole lot! And Wilson’s going to call off the liquor business to preserve the food.”

Mr. Arnold laughed hoarsely.

“A fine way to preserve the food!” he said. “A Democrat ought to know that when a man’s drinking he ain’t got no time to eat. I remember one time eight years ago last fifth of May,” he added. “I went on the waterwagon four days at that time, and I eat like a bay horse.”

“You don’t get the point,” said the other. “The stuff that liquor is made out of is the stuff that could be made into food if it wasn’t made into liquor. And we’re going to be up against it for stuff to eat during war-times, so the President’s going to help preserve the food by cutting out the liquor.”

“But,” objected Mr. Arnold, “why should he cut out a necessity, like drinking, to preserve eating, that’s just a habit?”

“They’s more people that eats than there is that drinks,” said Mr. Fisher, for that was his name.

“Now you’re talking wild,” said Mr. Arnold. “If that’s true, why is there more saloons than restaurants?”

“Because people don’t eat all day.”

“Of course not! They’s no fun in it.”

And as they had reached the ballpark, Mr. Arnold rose and left the car, an easy winner in the argument.

But neither Mr. Arnold’s victory nor the game pleased him, and at the end of three innings he got up and walked out, worried for the first time in eight years.

“I must find some fella I can trust,” he said to himself. “I must find out if it’s true.” And he boarded a car for his first post-pastime local stop.

Eddie, the barkeeper, and two ticker-fans observed his entrance with surprise.

“Well, Jay,” said the former, “what’s the idear? Wasn’t it going to suit you?”

“They’s other things besides baseball,” said Mr. Arnold shortly.

“Yes,” agreed Eddie, “but this ain’t no time to quit⁠—not when old Commy’s got the best club he’s had in years.”

Mr. Arnold appeared not to be listening.

“You look like an undertaker,” said Eddie. “What about a shot?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mr. Arnold, and he helped himself from the bottle placed before him. “Eddie,” he said, lowering his voice, “what’s this bunk I been hearing?”

“You mean about Commy getting another manager?”

“No!” said Mr. Arnold. “But I was reading in the paper where Wilson’s going to stop the liquor-business to preserve the food.”

“Sure,” replied Eddie. “It’s bound to come.”

“When?”

“Most any time. But we figure it’ll be about the first of September.”

“The paper I seen it in,” said Mr. Arnold, “talked like it was liable to happen any morning.”

“They’s no telling,” said Eddie.

“Maybe it’ll come tomorrow morning,” said Mr. Arnold.

“They’s no telling,” said Eddie cruelly. “But we don’t know if they’re going to cut it all out or not. They’re talking about barring just the heavy stuff and letting us keep on selling the stuff that ain’t as much as ten percent dynamite.”

“What would that leave?”

“Well, beer and a few of the very light wines.”

“This stuff’s bound to go?” asked Jay, pointing to his glass.

“Sure as one o’clock,” said Eddie.

“And cocktails and those things?”

“All of them.”

“Put me up two bottles of that rye,” said Mr. Arnold.

On the way downtown Mr. Arnold reached a decision, Never in his life had he tasted a cocktail; never had his finely chiseled lips touched the edge of a cordial-glass. It was not fair to himself to die without knowing all there was to know of alcoholic delights. He had seen their hilarious results in dozens of his friends, but rye and its two or three cousins had been his special study. He would take a full course tonight. He would be a graduate with an M.A. degree before tomorrow’s dawn and the President’s facile signature had taken the joy out of life.

“Ben,” he said to his favorite at Carney’s, “what kind of cocktails is they?”

“Oh, they’s a raft of them,” said Ben, “⁠—Manhattan, Bronx, Clover Leaf, Sazarac, Southern Comfort, rum⁠—oh, a raft of them!”

“Mix them up for me,” said Mr. Arnold.

“You could do it quicker with chloroform,” said Ben.

“Don’t try and kid somebody,” said Mr. Arnold. “As long as I got the money, I guess I can get what I order.”

“Sure you can,” agreed the gentleman on the sane side of the mahogany. “But we don’t want nobody dying on our hands, and that’s what’d happen to you if you tried to put away all them things at once.”

“I don’t want them all at once,” said Mr. Arnold. “I want them one at a time, in succession. While I’m cuddling one, you can be mixing the next, and so on Do you get me?”

“The cocktails will tend to that,” said Ben.

A Martini was the ninth on the list that Mr. Arnold put down.

“That’s all I know how to make,” said Ben after a close observation of his guest. “If I was you, I’d get myself something to eat.”

“That wouldn’t be the right spirit,” said Mr. Arnold. “We got to lay off of food and preserve it. Give us another cocktail.”

“They ain’t no more,” said Ben.

“All right. Start in on the cordials.”

“Cordials! You don’t drink them till after you’ve eat.”

“Is that the rules?” inquired Mr. Arnold.

“That’s the rules. Go back in the café and throw a big steak into you.”

“But I don’t feel like a steak. I feel like some cheese.”

“I thought you would,” said Ben.⁠ ⁠…

“I want to go where they’s music and dancing.”

So said Mr. Arnold to the driver, and he climbed into the car without mishap save for a barked shin.

Before he had got fairly asleep, the taxi stopped in front of the Red Duck.

“This is about the livest place,” the driver said, and Mr. Arnold, relieved of one dollar and thirty cents, walked in.

“What will it be?” inquired the waiter.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Arnold.

“Something to drink?”

“Why, certainly. What did you think I came in for⁠—to get a suit pressed?”

“What kind of a drink?”

“What kind ain’t I had?”

“I don’t believe they’s any,” said the waiter.

“But listen here, George. You must know of some fancy drink I ain’t had.”

“How about an absinthe frappée?”

“What is that like?” asked Mr. Arnold.

“Well, let’s see⁠—” said George. “It’s a good deal like shrapnel, kind of mild and harmless.”

“I don’t want nothing mild, but I don’t want to miss nothing. So bring it on.”

And it happened that in George’s absence they began to dance, and a girl at the next table thought Mr. Arnold looked so funny that she had to laugh at him just as the music started. And Mr. Arnold took the laugh as an invitation and went over there.

“Good evening,” he said.

Promptly arose the girl’s escort, a tall well-dressed young man.

“I guess you’ve made a mistake,” he said.

Mr. Arnold was embarrassed and said:

“I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon.”

“All right. Beat it!” said the youth.

“Yes, but I don’t want no bad feeling. I ain’t a bad fella. My friends’ll tell you that.”

“I’ll bet you they don’t.”

“They would if they was here. But that makes no difference. We’d ought to all be friends tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the last night.”

“The last night! Are you one of those bugs?”

Mr. Arnold laughed uproariously.

“That’s pretty good!” he said at length. “ ‘One of those bugs.’ I’ll bet they don’t nobody get ahead of you. I’d liked to of met you before it was too late.”

“I hope we’re not detaining you.”

“Not a minute! I’m all alone and just looking for company. It’s pretty tough running round alone the last night.”

“Say, what are you talking about? Did somebody tip you off that Gabriel was going to play ‘The Holy City’ tomorrow?”

“I guess you know what I’m talking about,” said Mr. Arnold, winking. “I guess you read the papers.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I guess you’re on the square,” said Mr. Arnold, “and if you really ain’t heard the dope, I’ll give it to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“And I may as well set down and buy a drink while I’m at it,” said Mr. Arnold.

“Walter,” said the young lady, “let’s finish this dance. Please!”

“No,” said Walter, “we’ll have the next.”

And he and Mr. Arnold sat down.

“Now,” said Walter, “what’s the big secret?”

“What are we going to drink?” said Mr. Arnold.

“What are you drinking?” inquired the younger man.

“Mine’s over to that other table. I’ll have the waiter fetch it. It’s something new⁠—an absinthe frappée.”

“Yes, that is a new one. But anyway, it suits me.”

“Walter! Anything but that! You promised!” said the girl.

“Yes, yes, I know!”⁠—impatiently. “But if this is the end of the world, promises don’t go.”

“And,” said Mr. Arnold, “won’t the young lady have one too?”

“Never mind her!” said the youth impatiently. “She’s Miss Gloom tonight. Let’s get to the secret.”

Mr. Arnold lighted a cigar with an unsteady hand.

“Well,” he said, “you know this here war⁠—”

“I’d heard there was one,” said Walter.

“Well, this war’s what’s brought up this here other thing. It seems like the President wants to preserve food.”

“Strawberries and stuff like that?”

“No, no. He wants to keep a hold of all the food, so’s they won’t be no famines during the war. And the stuff they make liquor out of could be made into something to eat if they didn’t make it out of liquor.”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“So tomorrow morning it’s off.”

The girl looked up eagerly.

“Was that in tonight’s paper?” she said.

“Sure, it was in all of them,” said Mr. Arnold.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s a cinch⁠—that is, the papers didn’t say it was going to be tomorrow, but it’s liable to be.”

The young man laughed.

“So you’re taking no chances,” he said.

“That’s me,” said Mr. Arnold. “When I heard about it, when I found out we was liable to wake up tomorrow morning and find everything closed, I says to myself I’d finish in a blaze of glory. And I swore I wouldn’t go home till I’d tasted every drink that’s made. I guess I’m pretty near to the end of the list now.”

“What have you had?”

“Well, I had nine different cocktails and seven cordials and I forget what all. And now I’m winding up with a few of the fancy ones.”

“Maybe I can think of some you’ve missed.”

“Walter!”

“Have you tackled a julep?”

“No.”

“Or a Swiss Ess?”

“No.”

“Or⁠—”

“Wait a minute. Let’s make lis’. Write ’em all down black and white.”

“Go ahead.”

“You write ’em. My hand kind of shakes.”

“I don’t see why it should.”

“Never mind. Make lis’.”

“I could make one a mile long. But I don’t believe you’d appreciate them all tonight. I’ll give you a few to wind up the evening on. And if you run shy tomorrow, call me up and I’ll give you some more.”

Whereupon Walter handed Mr. Arnold his card.

“You’ve got a good system,” continued Walter. “Pretend every night’s the last one and enjoy it to the limit.”

“No sys’m ’bout it. This’s pos’ively las’.”

“I’d like to bet you.”

“All bets off. I know!”

The girl rose from her chair. “Walter,” she said, “I’m tired. I’m going home.”

“All right, if that’s the way you feel about it. I’ll call you a cab.”

“Tha’s right,” said Mr. Arnold. “Time for li’le girls to be in bed.”

Jay Arnold awoke at noon on the thirtieth in a room in the Grand Hotel. The telephone was ringing insistently. He got out of bed⁠—a head-splitting operation⁠—and went to answer it. A voice at the other end announced that its owner was Walter Crowell.

“What of it?” said Mr. Arnold testily. “I don’t know nobody of that name.”

“Yes, you do,” said the voice. “Anyway, I’m coming up.”

“Well, don’t stay long,” said Mr. Arnold.

A few moments later he admitted the young man of the Red Duck.

“You!” said Mr. Arnold. “And how did you know I was here?”

“I put you to bed,” said Walter.

“The dickens you say! Well, it’s the first time that ever had to be done.”

Walter produced a morning paper.

“Arnold,” he said, “if you’d made that bet, you’d have lost it.”

“What bet?”

“I wanted to bet you that the country wouldn’t be bone dry this morning. It isn’t. And it probably won’t be for some time to come.” He paused. “But as far as I’m concerned, it is. I want to apologize for leading you on last night, and I hope that terrific mixture won’t kill you.”

“I think it has,” said Mr. Arnold.

“I acted,” said Walter, “like a first-class mutt.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” said Mr. Arnold. “I don’t know how you acted. I don’t know if you acted at all. All as I remember is that I and you and some girl were together.”

“She’s my wife, Arnold. She’s forgiven me for two reasons. One is that I’ve jumped aboard the wagon for keeps. And the other is that she knows I was downhearted and had reason to be.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“I can’t go.”

“Go where?”

“Well, to France.”

“Good Lord! That’s the last place I’d want to be.”

“Not if you’re a real man.”

“Well, I certainly ain’t, not this morning.”

“And I certainly wasn’t last night. But it’ll be different from now on.”

“If you want to go, why don’t you go?”

“They won’t let me in. My vision’s bad.”

“It was all right when you picked that girl.”

“But even if it was all right now, I couldn’t leave her. We have nothing saved.”

“Well, listen, kid: I don’t believe you’re liable to save nothing, hanging round the Red Duck nights.”

“There’s no mistake about that,” said Walter. “But you can bet I’m going to save from this out, because the day may come when they’re not so particular about vision.”

“Do you think we’re in for extra innings?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And they need more men than they’ve got?”

“You bet they need them⁠—all they can grab.”

“Well,” said Mr. Arnold, “I’m going back to that bed and lay down awhile longer.”

“Sure. Go ahead, and I’ll be running along.”

Walter started toward the door.

“Wait a minute!” said Mr. Arnold. “On your way out, I wish you’d tell them to send me up a drink.”

“Something brand new and fancy?”

“Yeah! Ice water,” said Mr. Arnold.⁠ ⁠…

“How old are you?” asked the doctor Arnold consulted a little later.

“Thirty-seven,” answered Mr. Arnold without evasion.

“There’s just one thing the matter with you. You drink too much.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken, Doc,” said Mr. Arnold. “I’m bone dry.”

“Since when?”

“Well, about three o’clock yesterday morning.”

“I thought so.”

“I’m through with it now.”

“If you want to get anywhere, you’ll have to be.”

“But if I obey orders, there’s a chance?”

“Yes.”

“All right, Doc. Shoot!” ordered Mr. Arnold.⁠ ⁠…

Eddie was taking the third inning from the ticker when Mr. Arnold blew in.

“Well, if it ain’t old Jay,” said Eddie. “I figured you must be sick when you didn’t show up yesterday, with Detroit here and everything.”

“I was sick, good and sick,” said Mr. Arnold.

“And why ain’t you there today?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. It don’t seem right to go and watch a lot of fellas play ball when they’s a game across on the other side that really means something. And besides, a man can’t get no exercise setting in the bleachers.”

“Who in blazes wants exercise?”

“I do.”

“You get plenty of exercise walking from one place to the next.”

“You know how much I walk! If they was a streetcar line from one side of my bed to the other, they’d get all my nickels on a restless night.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “this ain’t giving you no service.”

“I don’t want no service.”

“You certainly are sick!”

“I’m sick, but it ain’t incurable. It ain’t even going to cost me anything to get well⁠—that is, no money.”

“What is it going to cost you?”

“Just some nerve, Eddie⁠—enough to carry me through the rye-fields without stopping to pick the fruit.”

“You’re on the wagon?”

“Yes sir.”

“For how long?”

“Well, if those Dutchmen’s aim is as good as they say, it’ll be all my life.”

“What in thunder are you talking about? Have you went nuts?”

“I’ve learned something, Eddie.”

“You’ve been to a doctor or something.”

“Yes sir.”

“And he throwed a scare into you?”

“Well, he did that too. He said I’d last about two years longer if I didn’t cut it out right away. So I’ve cut it out, and I may not even last two years. But if they get me, it’ll be with a shot that don’t need no chaser. I’ve learned about this war, Eddie. They’s fellas right here in this town that want to go and can’t. They’re tied down with their families or something. And they’s fellas all over this country that don’t think much of a guy that can go and won’t. Well, I can go and I’m going.”

“When?”

“Not for a couple of months⁠—maybe more. They won’t take me now. But the Doc says if I’ll go to some springs and boil awhile, and if I’ll exercise, and if I’ll behave, he thinks eight or nine weeks will make a man out of me. I’m leaving the old burg tonight, and I thought I’d drop in and say goodbye.”

“Well, I’m hanged!” said Eddie. “And it was only two days ago that you was worried to death for the fear Wilson was going to take out your meter. And I was trying to kid you, telling you that night would probably be the last.”

“It was,” said Mr. Arnold.

“And did you make it a good one?”

“Oh, boy!” said Mr. Arnold.

“There’s another inning coming in,” said Eddie, and he walked over to the ticker. “Cleveland nothing, Sox two. Did you see what Felsch done yesterday?”

“No,” said Mr. Arnold. “I was reading about some other Dutchmen, on the front page.”

The Clubby Roadster

Young Harry Cross breezed into my office one morning in May with the sad news that his wife’s Aunt Myrtle had died of the blues in Memphis and had left Harry and she twenty-five hundred dollars.

“And only thirty-nine years old!” said Harry.

“Don’t kick about her going so young,” I told him. “You’d ought to be glad she succumbed before spending the twenty-five hundred.”

“That’s no way to talk!” he said. “I care more for Nan’s relatives than all the money in the world.”

“But it looks like the hand of Providence was in this,” said I. “It means you’re at liberty to leave home and go to France. I wish I could.”

“Why don’t you?” he asked me.

“How can I,” I said, “with a dependable wife and no millionaire aunts?”

“But what’s twenty-five hundred dollars?” said Harry. “The interest on it wouldn’t hardly keep a person in toothpicks.”

“You can do the next-best thing then,” I said. “You can buy twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of Liberty bonds.”

“Not no three and a half percent, I can’t!” said Cross. “A man that don’t get six percent for his money these days is a fish. But,” he goes on, “I’m not going to get no six percent or any other percent. I’m going to spend the money.”

I asked him what on.

“Well,” he said, “I’m tired of living with the wife’s folks.”

“And maybe it’s fifty-fifty,” said I.

“Anyway,” he said, “I and Nan are figuring on a cozy little flat of our own, and it’s going to cost us about six hundred dollars for furniture, a piano inclusive.”

“Well,” I said, “that’ll leave you nineteen hundred for the Liberty loan.”

“No,” said Cross, “because I promised to buy the Missus a car.”

“You certainly are a sport,” said I, “⁠—to forget your own comfort and enjoyment and think only of your wife’s, especially when you stop to consider that the lady who died was her aunt. I suppose it’ll be an electric.”

“No,” said Cross, “and it won’t be no flivver. When I buy a car, it’ll be a regular car. We’ve just about decided on a Champion.”

“A seven-passenger?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, “it’s what they call the Clubby Roadster, with room for four.”

“And how much do they cost?” said I.

“About fifteen hundred,” he said. “But that don’t include the extra tire or the engine-driven pump or the bumper, or the freight from Cleveland to here.”

“I suppose,” said I, “that they throw in a steering-wheel and a horn.”

“Altogether,” said Cross, “it comes to about fifteen-ninety, and the salesman says it’s the biggest bargain a man could find.”

I asked him if he could drive it.

“I won’t have no trouble,” he said. “It’s half nerve and half good judgment.”

“Well,” said I, “you can be sure of fifty percent efficiency.”

“And as soon as I get good,” said Cross, “I’m coming to take you and your Missus for a ride.”

“Call up ahead of time,” I said. “We’re busy about one night a week.”

“What night?” he asked me.

“The night you come to take us for a ride,” said I.⁠ ⁠…

But one day near the end of June I picked up a paper and seen where Mr. Wilson was liable to torpedo all the neutral Bourbon without warning; so I and a friend of mine down to the office spent the afternoon lightening his task. And by the time I got home, I was on friendly terms with the whole world and absolutely unable to say no to anybody. That’s the only way I can explain accepting Cross’ invitation, and if the Prohibition forces wants to use this as a moral lesson, they’re as welcome as a fresh egg.

He called up while the Missus was doing the supper-dishes.

“Listen!” he said. “Could you and your wife get off next Saturday?”

I told him I was off now.

“If you could,” he said, “how would you like to take a trip in the car with my wife and I?”

“Tickled to death!” said I.

“All right,” said Cross. “We’ll be over for you early Saturday morning. And have your nighties packed, because wherever we go, we won’t get back before Sunday night.”

I told him that suited me fine, and the deal was closed. You wouldn’t hardly believe a man could get that bad in one afternoon.

Cross came for us about eight o’clock.

“The wife wasn’t quite ready,” he said. “We’ll pick her up on the way. And that’ll give you and your Missus a chance to run up and see our flat.”

So we climbed into the shiny new Champion, I and the Missus in the back seat, and Cross started her off so smooth and easy that I cut my lip on the top of my spine. That first standing broad jump of half a block was the fastest we went on the whole trip.

“The engine’s a little stiff,” said Cross.

“The driver’s a big one,” I said to the Missus.

“They call this car the Clubby Roadster,” said Cross. “It’s a roadster, but most of them only have the driver’s seat, where this one’s got the extra seat for two more passengers. It’s a regular roadster body, only for the extra seat, so they call it a Clubby Roadster, on account of the back seat being right up close to the front. Everybody close together, so they named it the Clubby Roadster.”

“I never saw this style of car before,” said I. “I should think they’d have some special name for it, like Clubby Roadster.”

“That’s what they do call it,” said Cross.

I asked him why, but a postman was crossing the street four blocks off and he had to concentrate.

After we’d cleared this hazard, Cross said:

“I’m wild to get out on the country roads where I can step on her. They tell me she’s capable of fifty-five miles an hour. Would you believe it?”

“You bet I would,” said I, “and hearsay evidence ample.”

“We’re only going fourteen now,” said Cross. “If I speeded up here in the city, I’d be liable to get pinched.”

“And the way you’re going now,” said I, “the danger is that a thirsty truck-horse will romp up behind and drink all your gasoline. Or maybe a vicious snail will stick a claw through your extra tire.”

“There! I just hit fifteen,” said Cross. “The way that I tell is by this thing on the dashboard. It registers how fast I’m going. They call it a speedometer.”

“Is that so!” I said. “I always thought a speedometer was a kind of germicide.”

“No,” said Cross. “One part of it registers speed and another part registers mileage. So far, I’ve traveled just two hundred and twelve miles.”

“You’d ought to swap experiences with Bud Holmes,” said I.

Pretty soon we come to the Honeymoon Pub and Cross stopped the Champion by the simple process of running her into the curb.

“We’ll all go up for just a minute,” said our host. “Nan will be pretty near ready.”

Nan was pretty near ready⁠—to cry. From her miserable looks I figured she must of broken a tumbler, but it seems it was worse than that.

“Oh, Harry,” she said to her husband, “I turned Jack down.”

Then she went on to tell him that her brother had been in the Officers’ Reserve camp out to Fort Sheridan, and he’d just called up to say that they’d asked for waivers on him.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t see what you’re sad over. Did you want him to get killed?”

“Oh, no,” she sniffled. “But it’ll break his heart. He was crazy to give himself to the country. He passed the physical test and everything⁠—and now he can’t go.”

“It’s too bad,” I said, “that there’s no vacancies in the regular army. Otherwise he might horn in there as a private. Haven’t you no friends with a political pull?”

“Let’s not talk about it, or the little girl’s trip will be spoiled,” said Cross. “Come on and see what you think of our flat.”

Well, this tour of examination didn’t take much time. There was four rooms all told, and Jess Willard could have hung his head out of the front window and washed his feet in the kitchen sink. If a man coming in had tripped on the hall rug, he’d be in bed.

After an argument about whether Nan was taking enough wraps, and whether Harry should have the pajamas with the feet in them or the ones that allowed his toe-ums to run amuck at night, we squeezed out and started downstairs. Then Nan wasn’t sure she’d locked the door.

“What’s the difference?” I asked her. “A very thin burglar might manage to scrape in between the furniture, but Houdini’s the only one that could get out again and bring anything with him.”

She ran back, though, and convinced herself, and then we went on down to the car. Nan said I and the Missus would have to sit in back, so she could be beside Harry in front and read him the route out of the Blue Book.

I asked where we was headed.

“It’s a secret,” said Mrs. Cross, giggling.

“I don’t doubt it,” said I. “With your husband in the driver’s seat, the destination’s always a secret.”

I and the wife braced ourselves for another leaping getaway, but Cross did a whole lot better this time.

“If it wasn’t for straining the engine,” he said, “I’d start right out on high.”

“Anyway,” said I, “that’s where we’ll probably finish.”

We hadn’t been out of bed more than two hours, but that didn’t stop my Missus from going to sleep before we struck South Chicago.

After four wrong turns, we finally came to Indianapolis Avenue, that’s named after a town in the American Association. A few blocks ahead I saw a roadhouse called the Auto Inn, probably under the same management as the Grand Hotel and the Elite Café and the Economy Dry Goods Store.

“Cross,” I said, “our cupboard was bare this morning, and I don’t like to start out on a joyride with no oil. If you think you’re not going too fast to stop, let’s pull up minute at the joint with the peculiar name and get a couple of quick ones while the Missus is asleep.”

Nan cut in.

“No, indeed!” she said. “Harry mustn’t drink while he’s driving. Pretty near all automobile accidents are caused by liquor.”

“Anyway,” said Cross, “I’m going to try not to stop at all till we reach Michigan City. You can get a drink there.”

“How far is that?” I asked him.

“About sixty miles,” he said.

“But Indiana goes dry next April,” I said.

The book told us to fork off Indianapolis Avenue to the right. Between the place you fork and the outskirts of Hammond, there’s three or four miles of cement along Lake George that’s like a billiard table, and wide enough for three machines and a kid on roller skates to pass.

“Now we can make some time,” said Cross, and before I realized it, he had her up to eighteen miles per hour.

Nan grabbed his right arm. “Oh, Harry, please slow down!” she said.

“I’m all right,” said Cross, giving a kind of scared laugh. “There’s no danger as long as I keep my nerve. Besides, I’ve gone faster than this already.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “but it was when the instructor was with you.”

“But he couldn’t do anything to prevent an accident,” said Cross.

“He might have bigger hands than your wife,” said I, “and get a better grip on your arm. Many a life’s been saved by a good tight grasp on the chauffeur’s arm.”

In East Chicago we changed our minds about not stopping. The book said we had to turn left at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and something else, and right in the middle of the four corners, there was the East Chicago traffic-squad. Cross cut in to the left of him and he was on our running-board in nothing.

“Czech ipecac?” he said, which means in the English language: “What’s the matter with you?”

“Don’t get fresh, now!” said Cross.

“Tisza goulash!” (Come along to the station!) said the squad.

“Listen, old pal!” I said. “The lady in the back seat here is sick, and we’re trying to get her to a hospital in Gary. Do you ever smoke?”

So we were on our way again.

“Cross,” I said, “I bet your middle initial is von Bethmann. You know just how to handle ’em. Only you made one mistake. You should always call them some name⁠—or else have your tire-wrench handy and crack them in the bean.”

The book’s next instructions was to cross fifty-two railroad tracks, but the deck was a couple shy.

“ ‘At the end of the street,’ ” read Mrs. Cross, “ ‘turn right.’ ”

This was pretty good dope, as you couldn’t of turned to the left or driven straight ahead without hurdling a fence or a signboard into a field.

“The man that got up this book,” said Mrs. Cross, “must of rode along here himself sometime.”

“Either that,” I said, “or else he wrote the book first and then they made the turns to fit it.”

We hit eighteen again on the cement stretch that precedes the curve onto Fifth Avenue, Gary. But Fifth Avenue, Gary, or whatever they call the western continuation of it, must of been selected as the scene of some of our intense training in digging trenches. Anyway, there’s three miles of gorges before you strike town, some of them as much as a yard apart. The first jolt woke the Missus. It would of done the same to Rip Van Winkle.

“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“This is the Swiss Alps,” I said.

“I must of dropped off,” said she, and I thought at first she was trying to pull something, but then I remembered who it was.

“How long have we been on the road?” she asked me.

“Ever since we started,” said I, “up to just now.”

But Mrs. Cross heard us and looked at her wristwatch, the gift of the groom.

“Why, Harry,” she said, “we left Chicago at just nine and it’s after eleven now, and you said we could get to Michigan City in three hours.”

“We could if you’d let me step on her,” said Harry.

“Maybe we’re not on the right road,” said Nan.

“Whose fault is it if we ain’t?” said Cross, and his tone was not that of a passionate lover. I whispered to the Missus. “This may not be such a rotten trip after all,” I said.

There was no more social intercourse till we reached the pavement in Gary proper, if you could call it that.

“Yes, we’re all right,” said Nan, when we’d crossed the main street. “That was Broadway, and we’re on Fifth Avenue. Straight ahead now.”

“I don’t see how they think of all those names for streets,” said I.

“There’s a Broadway in New York, and a Fifth Avenue too,” said Mrs. Cross. “Maybe these were named after those.”

You can’t find fault with the stretch of road leading east out of Gary.

“Now’s your chance, Cross,” I said. “No danger to your springs here.” And I kept after him till we just touched twenty.

“Oh, look!” said the Missus. “We’re coming to a soldiers’ camp.”

“They’re guarding the Aetna Explosives,” said Cross.

A sentry loomed up on the horizon.

“Now listen, Cross,” I said. “If this guy tells you to halt, call him something and then run him down. No use arguing with him.”

“Harry, you be careful!” said Nan. “We’d better stop if he says so.”

“Oh, shut up!” said Cross, and my hopes revived.

The sentry saw he was badly outnumbered and let us pass unchallenged. Otherwise we might never have seen the town of Miller, which was evidently named after Joe.

Just this side of East Gary there was a sign that said:

Danger. Bridge Unsafe for Loads over 3,000 Pounds.

“Let’s see,” said Cross, when he’d stopped the car. “The machine’s supposed to weigh just twenty-eight-fifty. I weigh one hundred and forty-three pounds, and Nan weighs one hundred and thirteen. How much do you weigh?”

“About three hundred for both of us,” I said, “and the division of poundage is none of your business.”

“I and the car together makes twenty-nine-ninety-three,” said Cross. “You three people’ll have to get out, and I’ll pick you up when I get across.”

“But listen!” said I. “The suitcases and your tools and the extra tire totals a whole lot more than seven pounds. If I was you, I’d start the car at the regular pace and then jump out. We can catch up with it the other side of the bridge.”

“How would it steer?” he asked me.

“You can stand on the running-board and guide it,” said I.

“No,” he said, “I’ll stick at the wheel and chance it.”

Well, sir, three of us got out and walked ahead, and arranged it so we were standing right in the middle of the bridge when Cross drove over. And he was too scared to notice!

While he halted again to let us get in, a furniture van that must of weighed two and a half tons passed from the opposite direction and sailed over the bridge without even stopping to unload a soft pillow.

The giddy whirl of East Gary was too much for Mrs. Cross, and she sent us a matter of three miles up the wrong road. By the time we got back to the metropolis and headed in the right direction, the pair on the front seat were speaking to each other in words of one syllable and very few of those. But Dearie had to talk to somebody.

“The next town’s Porter,” she said, turning round. “There’s another route that goes right through it. But we miss it.”

“Speak for yourself. I don’t,” said I.

“Porter,” said the Missus. “That’s a funny name for a town.”

“Nothing funny about it, when you know how it got it’s name,” I said. “You see, practically all the railroads from the East run through it, and it’s forty miles from Chicago, and most people don’t sleep very good on a train, and they wake up along about here, and they can’t find their shoes, so they all stick their heads out at once and say the name of the town.”

“Porter?” asked the Missus.

“No,” said I. “George.”

Six miles west of Michigan City, Mrs. Cross looked at her watch and announced it was one o’clock.

“What do you care?” said Cross.

“I’m hungry,” she said, and her voice was full of tears.

“Well,” said Cross, “we’ll be in, in half an hour.”

Which words were scarcely uttered when there was a pop and hiss, and our right tire was down.

“It can’t be!” said Cross, looking at it. “They’re all guaranteed for six thousand miles.”

“Not against nails,” said I.

“It must be a puncture,” said Cross.

“Don’t jump at conclusions,” I said,

“I’ve forgotten if it’s Resta or De Palma or who holds that record for quick changes, or what the record is but in exactly thirty-five minutes we had the bum tire hanging on the back and the spare one in its place and were more moving Michigan Cityward. And I had the dirtiest shirt I ever saw, next to Harry’s.

“You can stop at a garage and have them patch that tube while we eat lunch,” I said.

“Like blazes!” said Cross. “I’ll wait till we get back home. We could never have two punctures on one trip.”

“No,” said I. “I’d forgotten that rule for the moment.”

“And furthermore,” said Cross, “we’re not going to stop in Michigan City for no lunch. We’re going to stop just long enough to get water and gas. Those that are hungry can buy some sandwiches and eat them on the way.”

“But Harry, I’m starved,” said his wife.

“Well, it’s your own fault,” said Cross. “In the first place, you didn’t get up in time to cook a decent breakfast. And the second place, if you’d kept track of the route, and not run us clear to Louisville trying to get out of East Gary, we’d of had time for a porterhouse steak in this town we’re coming to.”

“If you’d watched where you were driving, we might not of picked up that nail,” said his wife. “And then it took you all day and half the night to switch tires.”

“Shut up!” said Cross.

When we stopped in front of Michigan City’s handsomest garage, I handed the Missus fifty cents and jumped out.

“Buy yourself whatever you want to eat,” I told her. “I’ve got a date down at the next corner.”

She leaned over and whispered to me. “Don’t be long,” she said. “He’s just mean enough to go off and leave you.”

“You mean,” said I, “that he’s just mean enough not to.”

I was right. I had five and took my time about it, but when I came back, the car was still there. The Missus had a sackful of doughnuts, and Mrs. Cross an eyeful of tears.

The Missus whispered to me again. “He’s been abusing her terribly,” she said.

“What for?” I asked.

“Because you kept us waiting,” said the Missus. “He’s no different from other husbands.”

I was feeling too good to resent this fearful insult at the time, and I managed to be jovial all the way to New Buffalo. But it was a solo part. The Missus offered Nan a doughnut and got snapped at. Cross lost all control of himself and covered a mile and a half at the fearful rate of twenty-two per hour.

“Look out, boy!” I said to him. “There’s speed-laws even in the country.”

“Shut up!” said Cross.

“You’ve got some vocabulary! Six words and a bark!”

I’d been through New Buffalo on the train, but never knew before why they call it that. It’s because the sensation of motoring through the streets is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

A mile or so the other side we stopped dead, all spraddled out over a railroad track.

“This is the Père Marquette,” said Cross.

“Even so,” I said, “there may be trains on it.”

“I’ve killed my engine,” said Cross.

“That has nothing to do with theirs,” said I, and I got out to stretch.

We’d been pulling through sand in second speed, and at the time of the engine’s demise our host had neglected to shift into neuter. So when his foot pressed the self-starter, the Champion was off the track in one jump. After that the engine died again.

“Now you’re using better judgment,” I said, and climbed back in.

“If you don’t like the way I drive, you know what you can do,” said Cross.

“Yes sir,” said I, “and I’m going to do it.”

And while we were breezing along the beautiful road to Three Oaks at a nineteen-mile gait, I confided my plans to the Missus.

“I’m beginning to get deliberately unfriendly myself,” I told her. “They hate us, and we hate them. They also hate each other, and it’s just a question of time till we’ll be doing that too. Where we’re going is no longer a secret. We’re going back to Chicago.”

“Mrs. Cross will be mad,” said the wife.

“Will be!” I said.

“And besides,” said the Missus, “if we leave them to go on alone, they’ll kill each other and then we’ll have it on our conscience.”

“Not as much,” said I, “as though we personally assisted at the function.”

“Well,” said the Missus, “you know best.”

So on Main Street, in Three Oaks, Mich., I ordered our chauffeur to desist.

“Cross,” I said, “we’re going to leave you here.”

“Oh, don’t do that!” said Mrs. Cross, and her voice was as full of warmth as the Kaiser.

“We must,” I said. “My Missus doesn’t feel good. She’s got another of those spells that overtook her in East Chicago. And she’s always prayed that when Death came, she would receive him at home and not among Michigan strangers.”

“Don’t coax them!” said Cross. “If they want to quit on us, I’m willing.”

“Goodbye, then,” I said, “and good luck to you!”

“Shut your mouth!” said Cross.

It was four o’clock when we were set down in Three Oaks, and we had to wait till pretty near seven for a train. So we had plenty of time to count all the acorns.

“I hope there’s a diner,” said the Missus.

She said that four hundred and sixty-two times.

“I hope they have another puncture.”

I said that just as often.

“We made a mistake accepting their invitation,” said the Missus, when we were speeding westward with a double order of ham and eggs staring us in the face.

“Thanks for the ‘we,’ ” said I. “But it was my mistake.”

During the next two weeks I saw Cross five or six times and got nothing but sour looks. But on Monday morning of the third week he was standing by my desk when I blew in to work.

I didn’t give him any encouragement, and it took all the nerve he had to open up.

“Well?” he said finally.

“Shut your mouth!” said I.

“Say, listen!” he said. “Let’s forget all that. I owe you all kinds of apologies.”

“I’m willing you should stay in debt,” said I.

“But I’m not,” he said. “I acted like a rummy.”

“You were natural,” I said.

“No, I wasn’t,” said Cross. “It was that blasted car.”

Five minutes of silence.

“Would you like to hear what happened?” he asked me.

“Yes,” said I, knowing he’d tell me anyway.

“Well,” he said, “our intentions was to take you to St. Joe⁠—but we never got there ourselves. We were going through a burg called Sawyer when the rule was broken.”

“What rule?” I asked him.

“I had another puncture,” he said.

“I was afraid you would,” said I.

“Well, I did,” said Cross, “and it kind of upset the both of us; and to hear us light into each other, you’d of thought we’d been married a year. There wasn’t nothing to do but spend the night there. So I went to a kind of hotel, and she stayed with some old lady. The next day I got one of the tires fixed and drove back to Chi. She took our friend the Père Marquette.”

“I told you there might be trains on it,” said I.

“I didn’t go home for two nights,” said Cross, “and when I did, she wasn’t there. I found her at her folks’. I asked her to come home, but she said she wouldn’t come home till I sold the car. She said that only for it, we’d of gone all our life without a cross word, and she never wanted to see it again. Well, I agreed with her. So we fixed it all up.”

“And are you going to sell the Clubby Roadster?” I asked him.

“It’s sold already,” he said.

“What profit did you make?” said I.

“I took a two-hundred-dollar loss,” said Cross. “Then when I got the money, we were going to take a boat-trip and spend some of it. And then we got to thinking it over and decided it’d be a nice thing to invest the whole roll in Liberty bonds. We felt like we ought to do something for the country.”

“That’s a fine spirit!” I said. “But I know how you could of done a whole lot more.”

“How?” he asked me.

“You could of crated up the Clubby Roadster,” said I, “and sent it to the Kaiser with your fondest regards, and told him to be sure and take von Hindenburg and the Crown Prince and Mr. Ludendorff on a weekend trip, say to St. Joe or somewheres.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” said Cross. “Besides, they might of been like Nan and I and loved each other all the more for having a little misunderstanding. I never really appreciated my wife till we quarreled. Now⁠—”

“Shut up!” said I.

A Chip of the Old Block