if that wouldn’t make a difference, when she said that she guessed I would have to excuse her, now, because it was getting late, and she had promised to be home before twelve-thirty; and if she wasn’t, there would be trouble in the family.
I felt myself slipping; but there was still a chance. I asked her if she had come with any one; and she said yes—but they were going to stay till the finish. Three cheers for them, I said to myself.
Seeing that was the case, I asked her if I couldn’t take her home. I had an idea she would sort of hesitate at that; but she didn’t—not for a single instant. She said I could. And somehow, the way she said it, so quick like, without stopping to figure on whether it was the proper thing or not; and not only that, but a way she had of looking at me now and then—well, I wondered.
I wondered if she had something on me. I had already wondered that same thing two or three times before.
But anyway, she said it was only a little ways to where she lived, and so we walked. I would have been better suited if she had lived farther away—we got there in almost no time. She still had me guessing, except now, of course, I had the address, and the rest would be easy. Still, it began to look as if this was the end of a perfect day. But then she sprang it.
“Won’t you come in?” she invited me. Would I? I’ll say I would!
Off the hall there was a lighted room. We went in. There was a man sitting beside a table, reading. He had his back turned toward us.
“I’ve brought a friend of yours in to see you. dad.” she said. “Mr. Reynolds—Mr.
‘Bud’ Reynolds.”
So she had known who I was all along! Well, after all, there wasn’t anything so very surprising about that; because, of course, when a fellow is playing in the big leagues a lot of people get to know him by sight. But who was this dad of hers that was supposed to be a friend of mine?
I didn’t have to wait long for the answer. The book dad had been reading went sailing through the air across the room and landed up against something that must have been perishable, because I heard the crash. And dad came out of his chair all standing, as if a gun or something had gone off underneath him.
He turned. And—it was Jim Riordan!
Just for a second he stood there, with his face getting all sort of swelled up, and first red and then purple; and then, with a bellow like a wild buffalo or something going into action, he came for me.
I went away from there!
It was the only thing to do.
You see—well, I guess the fact of the matter is that I didn’t begin at the beginning of the story after all, though I certainly meant to. I can seen now that I ought to have begun with that game between the Metropolitans and the Pink Sox; the fifth game of a series that was played in August, the preceding season; the one that wound up with a riot.
I suppose the story really begins with the riot; but, cutting it short, what led up to it was this: when the Pink Sox came to town for that series we were tied with them for first place. And when we hooked up for the last game of the series it was still even- Stephen—we had split the first four games fifty-fifty.
I was in there working for the Metropolitans that day; and when I say that I had everything, I’m only telling the truth. And, considering that I had already won three straight games—had been returned a winner every time I had pitched against the Pink Sox that season—it was a safe bet that I could repeat. Anyway, that’s the way the home fans looked at it; and they backed their opinion to the limit.
Now get this: Jim Riordan and Charley Olds were the umps. But you can forget Olds; he didn’t figure. It was Jim Riordan that spilled the beans.
Mind you, I don’t say that Jim didn’t call
’em the way he saw ’em. No doubt he did. He wouldn’t do anything else, because any way you take him, Jim Riordan is one of the squarest shooters on the old foot-stool. I don’t say that Jim wasn’t all perfectly honest in his decisions.
But what I do say is this: if there is any umpire in the big leagues that deserves the Croix de Robbery, Jim Riordan ought to have it for his work that day. He must have let some kid have his eyes to play marbles with and hung up his brains in the clubhouse along with his coat. If ther was a chance to go wrong he took it; and if there wasn’t a chance—he made one. Talk about seeing things straight! He couldn’t see the difference between a foot-rule and a corkscrew.
And we hadn’t gone three innings when I slammed the ball down in the dirt and told him so. Then I started in to tell him some more things that I thought it would do him good to hear about himself. But I hadn’t got very far with it when he cut in and told me where I could get off. So I picked up the ball again and tended to business.
It was about here that the fans began riding Jim in earnest. But it didn’t make any difference to Jim or with his decisions; he kept turning ’em in—one hundred per cent wrong. Anyhow, he was consistent.
Never mind the details. The upshot of it was, Jim Riordan—not the Pink Sox—beat us to the tune of six to one. And no sooner was the last man out than they went for him. The fans. Before you could say Jack Robinson, Jim was surrounded. And not a man in the mob was there to shake Jim by the hand and tell him how glad they were to see him, and how were all the folks. Nothing like that. They were there to murder him—or the next thing to it.
So some of us waded in to see what we could do, I grabbed up a bat before I started over the top, and so I managed to work through the mob at a pretty fair rate of speed, until somebody took the bat away from me. After that the going was slower. But I finally managed to work through until I was right next to Jim.
Jim was doing all right for himself. So far he didn’t appear to be much damaged. But things were certainly moving fast in that locality just about then.
If they hadn’t been moving fast—well, it wouldn’t have happened. How it happened I have never been able to tell, not to this day. But here’s what came off: Riordan was facing me. There was one fellow between us. He was just starting to pull one from the ground; he was going to knock Jim for a row—or try to, anyway. So I let go at him—and hung a beauty on Jim Riordan’s left eyebrow!
I say I’ve never been able to tell how it happened, but here’s my guess: you’ve seen the same thing pulled pretty nearly every time you’ve seen one of these slapstick movie comedies. Let’s make it unanimous and say every time. There’s three comedians, the first one swings at the second one, the second one ducks it, and the third one gets it. Then reverse, and so on.
That fellow that stood between Jim and me didn’t see me: but somebody must have yelled at him; he ducked, and—bam! I got Jim—and believe me, it wasn’t any little love-pat.
Now, maybe that stuff is funny in the movies, but—well, put yourself in my place. Considering the way things were between Jim and me, I had a nice, easy little job explaining to Jim that when I biffed him on the brow I was trying to do him a service, didn’t I? I’ll say I did.
But I tackled it. Jim came through without many serious injuries after all; and that night I met him in the hotel and started in to square myself. He heard me through. And then he came back at me with this:
“Tell it to Sweeney! Do I look like a sucker? Trying to help me, eh? Well, believe me, you took a funny way of going at it! Look! There’s the place where you
