Part 9 (1/2)

There was a lively scramble in the two boxes as the first foul tip of the season whizzed directly at them. Gamble, who had captained his village nine, had that ball out of the air and was bowing jovially to the applause before Gresham had quite succeeded in squeezing himself down behind the door of the box.

Naturally it was Polly who led the applause; and Constance shocked the precise Gresham by joining in heartily.

She was looking up at Johnny with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks when Gresham came out of his cyclone cellar--and, if he had disliked Gamble before, now he hated him.

It is a strange feature of the American national game that the more perfectly it is played the duller it is. This was a pitchers' battle; and the game droned along, through inning after inning, with seldom more than three men to bat in each half, while the score board presented a most appropriate double procession of naughts. Spectators, warmly praising that smoothly oiled mechanical process of one, two, three and out, and telling each other that this was a great game, nevertheless yawned and dropped their score cards, and put away their pencils, and looked about the grandstand in search of faces they knew.

In such a moment Colonel Bouncer, who had come into this box because of a huge admiration for Polly and an almost extravagant respect for Constance, and who had heartily wished himself out of it during the last two or three innings, now happily discovered a familiar face only a few rows back of him. ”By George, Johnny, there's Courtney now!” he announced.

Gamble looked with keen interest.

”Do you mean that gentleman with the ruddy face and the white beard?”

he inquired.

”That's the old pirate,” a.s.serted the colonel.

”Why, that's the man you wanted to introduce me to at the race-track in Baltimore Sat.u.r.day.”

”Bless my heart, so I did!” he remembered. ”I thought it might relieve him to tell his troubles to you. It isn't too late yet. Come on up and I'll introduce you--that is, unless you want to watch this game.”

”I'm pleased to pa.s.s up this game till somebody makes an error,” Johnny willingly decided. ”If they'll hand out a base on b.a.l.l.s and a safe bunt and hit a batter, so as to get three men on bases with two out, and then muft a high fly out against the fence, and boot the ball all over the field while four of the Reds gallop home--I'll stay and help lynch the umpire; otherwise not. Show me to your friend Courtney.” He turned to take courteous leave of the others and his eyes met the friendly glance of Constance.

”Let's catch Mr. Courtney at the end of the game,” he suggested to the colonel; and then, turning directly to Constance, he added with a laugh: ”I think I'll play hooky. I don't want to break up the party.”

”If you think you see an opportunity for that million, the official scorer insists upon saying good-by,” she laughed in return, and held out her hand.

Johnny shook the hand with both pleasure and reluctance, and obediently left.

”I'm offering my pet vanity parasol against a sliver of chewing-gum on Johnny,” Polly confided to Loring. ”I could see it in his eye that Mr.

Courtney will be invited to help him make that million.”

”Somebody ought to warn Courtney,” Gresham commented sarcastically.

”Why warn him?” demanded Loring. ”I'll guarantee that any proposition Johnny makes him will be legitimate.”

”No doubt,” agreed Gresham. ”A great many sharp practices are considered legitimate nowadays.”

”I object, also, to the term 'sharp practices',” responded Loring warmly. ”I don't believe there's a man in New York with a straighter and cleaner record than Gamble's. Every man with whom he has ever done business, except possibly yourself, speaks highly of him and would trust him to any extent; and he does not owe a dollar in the world.”

”Doesn't he?” snarled Gresham. ”There's an unsatisfied attachment for fifteen thousand dollars resting against him at the Fourth National Bank at this very moment.”

Loring's indignation gave way immediately to grave concern.

”So that's why Close was trying to get him on the 'phone all afternoon!” he mused.

”Mr. Gresham,” called Polly sharply, ”how do you come to know about this so quickly?”

Gresham cursed himself and the blind hatred which had led him into making this slip; and he was the more uncomfortable because not only Loring and Polly but Constance had turned upon him gravely questioning eyes.

”Such things travel very rapidly in commercial circles,” he lamely explained.

”I had no idea that you were a commercial circle,” retorted Polly. ”I wonder who's crooked.” Gresham laughed shortly. ”It isn't Johnny!” she indignantly a.s.serted. ”I know how Johnny's fifteen thousand was saved from this attachment, but I wouldn't tell where it is--even here.”