CHAPTER VI
GLORIOUS NEWS
When Joe said goodby to Hank Bailey it was nearly noon, and as his way led past the Bilkins home he met Bilkins himself hurrying home from the Harvester Works for lunch.
The latter grasped Joe’s hand and almost wrung it from its socket.
“The more I think of what you did yesterday, the more grateful I am,” he declared. “We were all so worked up that I didn’t thank you half as much as I ought to have done. But I’ve been thinking of it every moment since, and so has my wife.”
“How is she, after the strain of yesterday?” asked Joe, hoping to change the subject from his own exploits.
“She’s all right,” replied the young husband. “Of course, she’s a little shaky and weepy yet, but that’s not to be wondered at when you think of what she went through. But here we are right at the gate. Come in for a minute.”
Joe would gladly have pleaded an excuse but hardly saw how he could, and he followed Bilkins into the neat little living room of the cottage.
Mrs. Bilkins hurried forward to meet him.
“Oh, Joe!” she exclaimed, as she clasped his hand, “I’ve been hoping to get this chance of thanking you for what you did for us yesterday. I was so excited at getting my baby back that I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. But I realize that if it hadn’t been for your quickness and presence of mind I wouldn’t have any baby now.”
She was perilously close to tears, and Joe, who had the masculine dread of a scene, sought to introduce a lighter note.
“The baby himself didn’t seem glad,” he laughed. “The little rascal thought he was out for a grand spree, and he was as good as a kitten while the lunatic had hold of him. But the minute I grabbed him he started in to howl like all possessed. He didn’t like the idea of my breaking up his fun.”
This broke the tension and they all laughed, while Mrs. Bilkins snatched up a fluffy little bunch from the cradle and showed him to his deliverer. The baby cooed and gurgled and stretched out his arms to Joe, who chucked him under the chin.
“Don’t try to come it over me, you young rascal,” he said sternly, but the baby only cooed the more and grabbed at his watch chain.
“It’s too bad he’s christened already,” smiled Mrs. Bilkins. “If he hadn’t been, we’d name him Joe.”
“What would be the use of putting a hoodoo on the little chap,” protested Joe.
There was a little further conversation and then, although they urged Joe to stay to lunch, he excused himself on the plea that his mother would be waiting for him and started for home.
But his progress homeward was doomed to be slow that day, for he had scarcely gone a block when he was hailed by Dick Talbot, the moving picture operator whom he had had in mind the day before while talking to Professor Crabbe.
“Hello, Joe, old man!” cried Dick, clapping him on the shoulder. “I haven’t seen you for a month of Sundays. How’s tricks?”
Joe returned his greeting with equal warmth, for he had a strong feeling of friendship for that exuberant youth who seemed always to be in good spirits.
“Things are moving all right,” he answered.
“Anything doing in this old burg?” asked Dick.
“Oh, not so much,” was the answer. “You know it’s rather a sleepy old town.”
“Sure thing,” said Dick with a twinkle in his eye. “Nothing doing at all, except chasing crazy men and saving kidnapped babies and little things like that. Oh, yes, it was sleepy yesterday.”
Joe laughed good-naturedly.
“Trust you to get next to anything that happens,” he said. “You’ve got the nose of a fox for news. Who’s been filling you up?”
“Who hasn’t?” replied Dick with a chuckle. “The whole town is talking of nothing else. They say that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, but that doesn’t fit your case. You’re the whole thing in Riverside.
“But say, Joe,” Dick went on jokingly, “why didn’t you wait to pull this thing off till I reached town with my little camera. My, what a scene for a moving picture! I’d have given my eyes to have a crack at it. Wild-eyed madman, holding baby above his head; frightened mob in the yard below; handsome young pitcher hurling the ball of ice. Say, I could have made a fortune with that film. All of the managers would have been crazy to get hold of it.”
“Oh, cut it out,” remonstrated Joe. “The whole bunch of you are making far too much out of it. As for your moving picture stuff, I’ve got something for you along that line that I’d like to try out if you don’t mind.”
“Of course I will,” answered Dick. “Get it off your chest. What is it?”
“I want you to take a picture of my curve ball,” answered Joe.
“It’s a pretty swift thing to take,” commented Dick. “Still, if we can show a bullet in motion, I guess we can take anything propelled by the brawny arm of Mr. Matson.”
“There’s a professor in town,” explained Joe, “who says it isn’t possible to pitch a curve.”
“Shades of Arthur Cummings and Bobby Mathews!” groaned Dick. “Are there such fossils still left in the world? Hasn’t the old chap ever been to a baseball game?”
“I suppose he has,” smiled Joe. “Anyway, he saw me curve some balls yesterday. He admits that it seems to curve, but tells me that it is only an optical delusion.”
“Listen to that!” exclaimed Dick. “Optical delusion! If that’s so, about ten million fans in this country have trouble with their eyesight and ought to see an oculist. Your professor reminds me of the wise Englishman who wrote a book to prove it impossible for a steamer to cross the Atlantic, and the very first boat that crossed brought his book to this country.”
“Of course,” smiled Joe, “you and I know that he’s wrong. But how are we to prove it to him?”
Dick thought hard for a minute or two. He had had to do all sorts of things in the exercise of his profession, and this had developed his natural ingenuity to the point where he was ready to say with Napoleon that there was no such word as “impossible.”
“I’ll tell you how I think we can fix it!” he exclaimed at length. “We’ll put two bamboo poles about ten feet apart and in a direct line between you and the plate. Then you take your stand in the box exactly in a line with both of them. Between the two poles we’ll stretch a sheet of white paper. You throw the ball so that it goes to the right of the first pole then turns and breaks the paper and comes out to the left of the second pole. That will be proof positive that the ball has described a curve, and no matter how obstinate the professor is he’ll have to admit it.”
“Bully!” cried Joe. “That will do the trick all right. When do you think you can do it?”
“Oh, almost any time,” answered Dick. “My time is pretty well filled up for today or tomorrow, but if you’ll have the thing rigged up by day after tomorrow, I’ll come over to the gymnasium and take the picture.”
“Fine,” said Joe. “That’ll suit me to a dot. Suppose we say two o’clock in the afternoon day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” declared Dick; and with a final handclasp they separated, and Joe hurried home to his belated dinner.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Momsey,” he said to his mother as he kissed her in the hall and hung his hat and coat on the rack, “but it seems to me that I’ve met the whole population of Riverside this morning. I didn’t know the old town had so many people in it.”
“I don’t wonder they wanted to talk to you, after yesterday,” said Mrs. Matson, her bosom swelling with maternal pride. “I thought it would be that way, so I got dinner ready a little later than usual. But come right in now while things are hot.”
“That’s an invitation I never refuse,” said Joe gaily, as with his arm around his mother’s waist he went into the dining room. “Hello, what’s this?” as his eye fell on a yellow envelope on the mantelpiece.
“It’s a telegram that came for you about an hour ago.”
“From Reggie again, probably,” said Joe, as he tore it open. “Something he forgot to put into the first one. If I keep on getting telegrams, it may pay the company to put in a branch office at the house here.”
He ran over the message and his face flushed. Then he read it again as though he could not believe his eyes. Then with a whoop he threw it from him, and catching his mother about the waist whirled her around the room in a wild war dance.
She extricated herself at last, breathless and scandalized.
“Joseph Matson!” she exclaimed, “what on earth is the matter with you? Have you gone crazy?”
“Not a bit of it, Momsey,” exulted Joe, “though it wouldn’t be surprising if I had. I’ve been traded to the New York Giants!”
CHAPTER VII
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
If a thunderbolt had fallen it could hardly have created more astonishment.
“What’s that?” cried Clara, who had come into the room just in time to see the last of the mad dance and hear a fragment of what Joe was saying.
“The Giants, Sis!” exclaimed Joe. “The class of the National League! I’m getting right to the top of the ladder! I’m going to play with the finest team in the biggest city on the most famous grounds in the United States! How’s that for a jump?”
“Oh, Joe, that’s splendid!” exclaimed his sister, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’m so proud of this big brother of mine!”
“Will it mean such an awful lot to you, Joe?” asked his delighted mother, who could never get quite clearly in her mind the working of the great national game.
“I should say it would,” returned Joe. “It’s a big advance in a hundred ways. It’s the thing that every player in the country dreams about. There are men who would almost give their eyes to have my chance. It’s getting into the blue-ribbon class. It’s like riding in an automobile after you’ve had to put up with a buggy. It’s like getting a speaking part in a play after you’ve carried a spear as one of the Roman populace. It’s like——”
What heights of eloquence Joe would have reached in his enthusiasm was checked at this moment by the entrance of his father.
“What seems to be the special thing that’s turning all you sensible people into lunatics?” he laughed.
Clara flew to him.
“Oh, Dad!” she exclaimed, “it’s the greatest thing that ever happened. Joe is going to be a member of the New York Giants. He’s just got a telegram telling him about it. Isn’t it glorious?”
Mr. Matson’s face lighted up. More than the women folks he could understand all it was likely to mean to his son.
He wrung Joe’s hand jubilantly.
“I congratulate you with all my heart, my boy,” he said. “It’s a great step forward in your profession and I know you’ll make good on your new team. But how did the matter come about? Didn’t you have any idea that it was in the wind?”
“Not the least in the world,” answered Joe. “The thing’s been carried on so quietly that I haven’t seen it even hinted or whispered in the papers. Of course, they don’t usually go about those things with a brass band, because they’re afraid some other manager may hear about it and try to butt in on his own account. McRae, the manager of the New Yorks, is as foxy as they make them, and he doesn’t let the newspapers get hold of anything till he’s ready to have them. To think that he’s picked me out for his pitching staff!” and Joe again displayed such alarming symptoms of seizing his mother for another whirl that she retreated behind the table.
“Come and eat your dinner, you silly boy,” she smiled fondly. “I suppose you’ll have to do such a simple thing as eating, even if you are going to play on your wonderful New Yorks.”
“Just watch me if you have any doubt about it,” replied Joe, as the happy family seated itself at the table.
As can be imagined, there was only one topic discussed and that was the striking change in Joe’s fortunes and the new vista that was opening up before him.
“Did you ever have any talk with McRae that made you think he might like to have you on his team?” asked his father, as Joe passed his plate for a second helping.
“Not at all,” was the reply. “In the first place I was just a ‘rookie’ last year, and the older men in the league rather stand aloof from the raw beginners. They don’t encourage any familiarity. Not but what McRae has spoken to me though,” he grinned.
“Is that so?” asked his mother with interest. “What did he say?”
“Oh, he stood on the side lines while I was pitching against his team and tried to rattle me,” laughed Joe. “He told me that I was rotten, that I never could pitch, that I ought to go back to the bushes, that I was going up in the air, that I couldn’t see the plate with a telescope, and other little things like that.”
“I think he was just horrid!” exclaimed Mrs. Matson, bristling at the thought of the taunts hurled at her offspring.
“Oh, I didn’t mind it a bit,” chuckled Joe. “It was all in the game. He was simply trying to ride me, to get my goat——”
“Ride you? Get your goat?” repeated his mystified mother.
“You blessed Momsey,” cried Joe. “What I mean to say is that he was trying to get me so excited that I couldn’t pitch well and then his team would win the game. But it didn’t work,” he ended grimly, as he thought of that memorable day when he had pitched the St. Louis team to victory and dragged the Giants’ colors in the dust.
“Now that I come to think of it though,” Joe went on, “I remember that the last time I was in New York, I caught him eyeing me pretty sharply while I was sitting on the bench. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, as I was all wrapped up in the game, but it may have been that he was sizing me up with just this deal in mind.”
“Does the telegram tell you just whom or what you’ve been traded for?” asked his father.
“No, that’s the exasperating thing about it,” replied Joe. “It just says that I’ve been traded to the Giants but it doesn’t give any details. I don’t even know who sent it except that it comes from some official of the club. I’m anxious to know, not only from curiosity, but because there may have been some money passed in addition to a player, and in that case I may get a little slice of it for myself.”
“Somehow, I don’t exactly like the use of the word ‘traded,’” said Mrs. Matson, reflectively. “It seems to leave your own wishes out of the matter altogether. Of course, in this case you’re pleased, but even if you weren’t you’d have to submit to it just the same.”
“I feel a little the same way,” agreed Clara. “It’s almost as though you were so much merchandise, a sack of wheat, a ton of coal, or something of that kind.”
“Of course, that is one of the unpleasant features of the game,” admitted Joe. “But as a matter of fact, it can’t be helped. If every one were left free to act entirely for himself, the big leagues would go to pieces in less than no time. Players would be jumping from one team to another every week, and no manager would know what he had to depend on. There’s such a tremendous amount of money invested—you couldn’t buy out the Giant club at this minute for less than two million dollars—that the men at the head have to take some means to protect themselves. Some of their methods wouldn’t stand the test, perhaps, if they were taken to court, but it would be a very foolish player who would seek a court action. If the baseball players are ‘slaves,’ as they sometimes like to call themselves, they’re the most happy and well paid slaves in the world, and there are lots that would like to change places with them and wear their chains.”
“Do you suppose you will get a bigger salary than you had in St. Louis?” asked his father.
“It’s almost a sure thing that I shall,” replied Joe, hopefully. “If I was worth three thousand dollars a year to the Cardinals, even before I had made good, I ought to get at least four thousand or a little more to start with on the Giants.”
“Four thousand dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Matson, who was so used to the modest figures that prevail in a small town that the amount seemed almost a fortune.
“Not many ministers get as much as that, eh Momsey?” joked Joe.
“And that isn’t all,” he went on without waiting for an answer. “I’ve got a much better chance to get into the World’s Series on the Giants than I would have on the Cardinals. McRae has won several pennants already and it’s getting to be a habit with him.”
“Is that because he is a so much better manager than those of the other teams?” asked Clara.
“Maybe not altogether,” answered Joe reflectively, “though there’s no doubt he’s one of the very best. He gets a salary of thirty thousand dollars a year”—here Mrs. Matson gasped—“and I guess he’s worth it. But he has some advantages that other managers don’t have. In the first place, there’s unlimited money behind him and if he wants anything that can be bought he goes after it regardless of price. Then too, New York is the best paying town in the whole league, and it’s to the interest of the other clubs to see that the New York team is a good one so as to draw the crowds. So that McRae’s attempt to strengthen his team doesn’t meet with such stiff opposition as some other manager’s might. But the chief thing is that he’s allowed to run the team without any interference by the owners of the club. He hires or discharges just whom he likes, and they never make a peep. In that way he can maintain discipline over his players, because they know that whatever he says goes. Oh, he’s a great manager all right, and I’m mighty glad to have a chance of playing under him.”
“Suppose you do happen to get into the World’s Series, will it mean much extra money?” asked Clara.
“I should say it would,” answered her brother. “After taking out ten per cent. of the receipts for the first four games for the National Commission, sixty per cent. of the balance goes to the winning club and forty per cent. to the losers. That makes anything from three to four thousand apiece for every member of the winning team, and from two to three thousand apiece for each member of the losing team. It’s almost like getting another year’s salary just for an extra week’s work.”
“Just that World’s Series money alone would be enough to start a nice little home with and settle down to housekeeping,” remarked Clara, with a sly glance at her brother.
Joe laughed, a little sheepishly, and again a flood of color swept over his neck and face.
“Never you mind about that,” he said loftily. “Plenty of time to think what I’ll do with the money after I get it, if I ever do. But at least I’ve got a great deal better chance than I would have had on the Cardinals. Not but what I hate to leave the old bunch,” he added a little soberly. “I’ve had a mighty good time this last year, and Watson has treated me white. Most of the others, too, were good fellows, especially Rad Chase. I wish he were going along with me.”
“The change is going to be a mighty good thing financially,” said Mr. Matson. “But leaving out the money end altogether, how do you figure that it’s going to be such an advantage to change from the St. Louis to the New Yorks?”
“Oh, in a heap of ways,” replied Joe. “For one thing, I’ll be playing before bigger crowds, and that’s always an inspiration to a pitcher. Then, too, we’re pretty sure to be well up in the race and fighting for the lead, instead of being down in the ruck. You don’t know how much difference that makes to a player. Instead of being in the doleful dumps, he’s feeling as frisky and gay as a two year old. But the most important thing of all is that with a good club he has smart, snappy fielding behind him, and that makes him feel that he’d pitch his head off to win. With the Giants’ brilliant infield behind me, many a hard-hit ball will be turned into an out where with a poorer club it would go as a hit. That helps my percentage. Oh, it will make all the difference in the world. Just watch my record from now on,” and Joe swelled out his chest, while Clara mockingly knocked her head on the table to do him reverence.
“Hail to the Giant!” she exclaimed. “Although I don’t see that you’re any more gigantic than you were before, except that perhaps your head has swelled a little,” she added mischievously.
Joe laughed. Laughter came very easily to him today. The world had never seemed so bright to him. Life was decked out in rainbow colors. To be young, to be healthy, to be successful in his chosen calling—what else did he have to ask for?
Just one thing, perhaps. And again he flushed, as he recalled what his sister had said about “settling down to housekeeping.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMING OF REGGIE
The happy conference had been so animated and there had been so many things to talk about that Joe gave a start when he glanced at his watch.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think it was anywhere near so late as that. I’ll have to get a move on, if I’m going to meet Reggie.”
“Do you think he’ll be here today?” asked Mrs. Matson.
“There’s no telling what Reggie will do,” laughed Joe. “He’s a law unto himself. All that he said in his telegram was that he was coming on. But it’s possible for him to get here this afternoon and I have a hunch that he’ll be here by the first train he could catch after he sent the wire.”
“Of course he’ll stay with us while he’s in town,” said his mother.
“You can be sure that Joe wouldn’t let Mabel’s brother go to a hotel,” put in Clara, demurely.
Joe pretended not to hear.
“I’ve got some other things to do too,” he said, as he rose from the table, “so I guess I’d better be starting.”
“What other things?” asked Clara.
“First of all, I’ve got to get some bamboo poles and rig up things for a moving picture stunt in the gymnasium,” replied her brother. “I met Dick Talbot this morning and he promised to come over and take a film of my curve ball in a day or two. Professor Crabbe is as hard to move as the rock of Gibraltar, but I guess he’ll pull in his horns after Dick and I show him a thing or two.” And much to their amusement, he told them of the controversy he had had with the doughty professor.
“Then too,” he went on, “I’ll have to practise like the mischief now until I receive notice to start for the training camp. A good deal depends on first impressions, and I want to show McRae that he hasn’t picked a lemon.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Matson, “I hate to hear you talk of going away. I grudge every day you’re away from Riverside.”
“Never mind, Momsey,” said Joe, cheerily, as he kissed her. “It’ll be some time before I have to go and, after I do, I’ll keep the mails working overtime.”
He put on his hat and coat and started out, walking as swiftly and lightly as though he trod on air. The atmosphere was crisp and bracing, his blood coursed strongly through his veins, and the world had never before seemed so good a place to live in.
He turned his steps first toward the gymnasium. He had found this place of the greatest value to him through the winter season. He had not practised so hard that there was danger of his going “stale” before the actual beginning of the season, but he had done just enough work to keep him in superb physical condition and hold the flesh down. There was scarcely an ounce of superfluous flesh upon his bones and he felt as though he could go in the box tomorrow if he were called upon. He never dissipated—had never touched a drop of liquor in his life—and one might have gone a long way before finding a more perfect specimen of the athlete than Joe presented that afternoon.
He found several of his chums awaiting his coming, and of course the first thing he did was to tell them of the great news that had come to him that morning.
“The New York Giants!”
“Bully for Joe!”
“Some class to old Riverside, eh?”
“They’ll win the pennant sure, now!”
“You’ll have a look-in at the World’s Series, Joe!”
They all crowded round with warm and hearty congratulations and wrung his hand until he winced.
“Don’t take my arm off, boys,” he laughingly protested. “I need the old soup bone in my business.”
“I wish I could tell you all about it, fellows,” he went on, in reply to their eager request for particulars, “but honestly, I don’t know any more about it than you do yet. I suppose I’ll get a contract to sign in a day or two, and perhaps there’ll be something about it in the New York papers when they get here tomorrow morning. All I know now is that I’m going to play this year in New York. That is,” he jested, “unless McRae finds out he’s been buncoed and fires me.”
“Swell chance of anything like that!” exclaimed Tom Davis. “I’ll bet you’ll take your regular turn in the box from the very start.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” answered Joe. “McRae puts a great deal of faith in his veterans, and the chances are I’ll have to warm the bench until some of the others fall down. You know how it was with Markwith, the ‘eleven thousand dollar beauty.’ McRae kept him on the bench for nearly two years, scarcely using him at all, but giving him a chance to learn the ‘inside stuff’ by watching the others. Then when he was ripe, McRae put him in and he went through the league like a prairie fire. He may do the same thing with me.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” declared Tom, loyally. “You’re as good a pitcher now as Markwith ever dared to be. Besides Markwith came from a minor league while you’ve already had a year’s experience in the National League with St. Louis.”
“I’m afraid it’s your friendship rather than your judgment that’s talking now, Tom,” answered Joe. “Markwith has won nineteen straight, right off the reel, and that’s some little record, let me tell you. But I surely am going to do my best, not only on my account but so as not to disappoint my old friends. Take off your coat now and I’ll toss you up a few just to get my wing good and supple.”
Tom complied, and there was some spirited pitching practice which demonstrated that Joe was in fine fettle. All his curves worked finely, and there was a world of speed behind the high fast ball that he occasionally cut loose.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to stop now,” said Joe reluctantly, after half an hour of good practice, as he looked at his watch. “I’ve got to stop at Brigg’s store to get a couple of bamboo poles, and then I have to go down to the station to meet a friend whom I rather expect by the four-thirty-five. I’m sorry, too, for I’m just getting warmed up and I’d like to keep going for an hour yet.”
He said goodby to his chums, and, after having stopped in the store to make his purchases, strolled down to the railroad station, to await the possible coming of Reggie. He was eager to find out all the meaning of the queer message he had received, and it is barely possible that he was still more eager to have some tidings of Reggie’s sister.
He had to cool his heels in the depot for some time, as the train was late, and it was fully an hour after its usual time when it finally rolled into the station.
There were several day coaches and but one parlor car, and Joe made his way straight toward this, knowing that Reggie, who looked for the best in everything, would travel in no other.
In the first few who came down the steps he noted no familiar figure, and he was beginning to think that Reggie for some reason had deferred his trip when he caught sight of that young man coming leisurely from the Pullman. If he had not seen the face he would have had a moral certainty that it was Reggie, for he was dressed in an extreme of style that was not at all common in the quiet little town of Riverside.
Reggie was an amiable young man who could not by any stretch of imagination be described as an intellectual giant. Many in fact would have had no hesitation in classing him as a “lightweight.” But he had many qualities that redeemed his foppishness, chief among which, in Joe’s estimation, was that he was a rabid baseball “fan,” and above all was the brother of Mabel. This last would alone have been capable, like charity, of covering a multitude of sins.
He had a tiny little moustache curled up at the ends that gushing girls would have described as “darling,” his clothes were a suit of English tweeds, and he had an accent and a vocabulary that he made as English as possible.
“Hullo, old top!” he exclaimed, as he saw Joe. “I’m awfully glad to see you, don’t you know. It was no end good of you to come down to meet me, especially as I hadn’t told you just when I was coming.”
“That’s all right, Reggie,” smiled Joe, as he grasped his hand cordially. “I knew you must have been rather cut up when you sent that telegram and forgot to tell me the train you were taking. But it seems like old times to see you again. How’s every one down at Goldsboro?”
“Fine as silk,” responded Reggie. “If I hadn’t had to rush off in such a hurry, I’d have brought Mabel along with me just for the trip. She’s awfully anxious to see your sister, Clara, don’t you know. It’s astonishing how those girls have taken to each other.”
“Clara feels the same way,” responded Joe warmly. “She’s done little else but talk of Mabel since the last time she was here. But give me your check, old man, and I’ll attend to your baggage. Of course you’ll stop with us while you are here. That goes without saying.”
Reggie made a feeble protest as a matter of form, saying that he ought to go to the hotel, but he readily submitted to be overruled by Joe. The latter tossed the check to the station hackman with instructions to get Reggie’s valise, and when this was done the two friends took the hack and were whirled through the quiet streets to Joe’s home.
By tacit consent, neither spoke of the real object of Reggie’s visit to Riverside just then. There would be plenty of time for that when they should be alone after supper and have nothing to interrupt them.
“Beastly cold weather, what?” said Reggie, as he turned up the collar of his overcoat.
“It is pretty sharp,” agreed Joe; “but nothing to what it was the last time you were here. That was a blizzard for fair. Remember how we were all upset in the snow when we were trying to get to town from the train stalled in a snowdrift?”
“I remember, all right,” laughed Reggie. “We certainly had a fight for life that night.”
“And what a thoroughbred your sister was that night,” continued Joe, who was always anxious to bring the conversation round to Mabel. “Where lots of girls would have gone into hysterics, she was as cool and brave as any man could have been.”
“Mabel has class,” agreed Reggie carelessly. “I recall how she held the horses’ heads while we were righting the sleigh. Some plucky girl!”
“You bet she is!” responded Joe, with an enthusiasm that might have seemed suspicious to Reggie if the latter had not been so wrapped up in his own affairs that his talk with Joe was rather absent-minded and made no strong impression on him.
Joe was not long in discovering that Reggie’s trouble, whatever it was, sat heavily on him. He relapsed into monosyllables until the Matson home was reached.
The hearty welcome he received from all the members of the family thawed him out somewhat, and during the meal that followed—a meal into which Mrs. Matson had put all her housewifely skill because of the expected guest—he was more like the gay, care-free Reggie that they had previously known.
He was especially delighted to know of the change in Joe’s fortunes, and congratulated him heartily on his transfer to New York.
“If you work for them as well as you worked against them, there’ll be no kick coming on the part of McRae,” he prophesied. “In that last game you played in New York you had the Giants eating out of your hand.”
“Let’s see,” said Joe, with affected carelessness, “your sister was with you that time, wasn’t she?”
“You’d think she was if you heard how many times she’s referred to that game since then,” answered the unsuspecting Reggie. “Mabel always did like to see a good game, but this last year or so, she’s become more of a fan than ever.”
Clara, glancing at her brother, felt that she could make a shrewd guess why Mabel had developed such an increased interest in baseball, but the presence of Reggie put a spoke in her eager desire to tease Joe for the fun of seeing him blush.
“You’re lucky to have the thing happen just now, when the fans are beginning to get hungry for baseball news,” commented Reggie. “The newspapers will play up the deal for all that it is worth, and your picture and record will be on every big sporting page in the country.”
“Perhaps that won’t be an unmixed blessing,” laughed Joe. “It’ll make the public expect too much, and the disappointment will be all the greater if I don’t make good.”
“I’ll take chances on that,” replied Reggie emphatically. “There isn’t a better aim than yours in the league, and the whole country will be ready to admit it before the season is over.”
The talk ran on pleasantly for an hour or two after the supper was over. Clara played and sang, and Reggie dutifully turned her music for her and made himself agreeable to Mrs. Matson. But all felt that Reggie had a revelation to make to Joe, and as soon as courtesy would permit the other members of the family said good night and left the two young men to themselves.
There was a cozy open fire burning in the grate and they drew up their easy chairs before its cheerful glow, facing each other.
“Now, Reggie,” said Joe, with a quizzical smile, “tell me the sad story of your life. Go to it, old man. Tell me about Talham Tabbs.”
CHAPTER IX
A TRUSTING DISPOSITION
Reggie flushed and gave a little uneasy laugh. For one who usually had a very good opinion of himself, he seemed singularly embarrassed.
“The truth is, old top,” he said, “I scarcely know where to begin. I’m afraid I’ve been a fool, don’t you know.”
“Nonsense,” said Joe encouragingly. “We all make mistakes. The fool is not the man who makes a mistake but the one who makes the same mistake twice. The perfectly wise man has never yet been born. At least, if he has I’ve never met him.”
“It’s awfully good of you to talk that way,” replied Reggie, “and it makes it easier for me to tell you what I’ve got to say. But before I go any further, let me ask you one question: Have you seen anything of that Talham Tabbs I mentioned in my telegram?”
“Yes,” answered Joe nonchalantly. “I saw him for the first time yesterday. Rather unexpected meeting it was, too, for a fact.”
“Where did you see him?” asked Reggie eagerly.
“On top of a lumber pile,” was the answer.
“On top of a lumber pile?” repeated his friend, with a puzzled air. “What on earth was he doing there?”
“Swinging a baby above his head and threatening to throw it down on the railroad track,” replied Joe.
Reggie stared blankly at Joe, as though he thought he was suddenly bereft of reason.
“I never was good at riddles, old chap,” he said. “Tell me just what you are driving at.”
And then Joe told him all the happenings of the day before, while Reggie looked at him with open-eyed wonder.
“And you brought him down with the first shot,” he marveled. “That aim of yours is certainly a pippin. McRae made no mistake when he got you on his staff.”
“It was a case of touch and go,” remarked Joe. “I simply had to get him on that first try. If I’d missed him then, I’d never have had a chance for a second shot.”
“I’m glad the poor beggar wasn’t badly hurt,” said Reggie. “Are you sure that he’s perfectly safe down in the jail?” he added as an afterthought.
“I don’t see where he could be much safer,” answered Joe. “Old Hank Bailey hasn’t any more brains than the law allows, but I guess he’ll keep him right and tight. Besides, he was strapped to the bed when I saw him this morning. I gave Hank a special tip to be on the watch, and I guess we don’t have to worry about laying our hands on him when we want him.”
“That’s good!” ejaculated Reggie, with a sigh of relief. “I’m beginning to see daylight now.”
“Well, now,” said Joe, “that I’ve told you all I know, suppose you loosen up and tell me just why you’re so interested in the doings of Talham Tabbs.”
“I will,” answered Reggie, “and you’ll be the first living soul to know anything about it outside of Tabbs and myself. I haven’t even told Mabel about it, though she and I have been close pals ever since we were children. And as for breathing a word of it to the governor——” Here Reggie spread out his hands in a gesture that was more eloquent than words.
Joe thought to himself that he could very readily understand why Reggie might shrink from revealing anything to the stern, gruff father, of whom he had caught an occasional glimpse; but when it came to the womanly sympathy of Mabel it was different.
“You see,” went on Reggie, “I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to settle down—make something of myself—go into business of some kind or other—what?”
Joe had privately long had a similar feeling about Reggie. What he had seen of his friend had shown him a young man who was seeking the froth of life rather than the substance, chasing the phantom of pleasure rather than facing the sober realities of things as they are. Had he been any one else than the brother of Mabel, Joe would simply have classed him as a social butterfly and let it go at that. As it was, he had excused a lot of things because of his youth, and now he was sincerely glad to learn that Reggie was taking a more sensible view of life.
“That’s the way to look at it, old man,” he said approvingly. “There’s nothing in this society stuff.”
“So I went to the governor,” continued Reggie, “and told him what I had in mind. The trouble is, dad has been too good to me. Had a pretty rough time of it when he was young—poverty, hard work, and all that—and he had promised himself that his son, if he ever had one, shouldn’t have so hard a time of it as he had had. So he gave me everything I wanted—plenty of money, a tour of Europe, motor boat, automobile, and all that sort of thing, don’t you know. I suppose later on he expects to take me into business with him, but he hasn’t been in any hurry about it. Funny, isn’t it, how hard-headed men look at those things sometimes when their children are concerned?”
Joe nodded. He had known of more than one instance where, through some strange blindness, men who had risen to wealth by their own endeavors had been unwilling that their boys should have the same hard but wholesome experience.
“He laughed at me at first,” Reggie went on, “and tried to joke the matter off. But when he saw that I was in earnest it set him thinking. Then he looked at me in that quizzical way of his and said:
“‘I tell you what I’ll do, Son: I’m willing to take a chance just to see what stuff there is in you. Just as one throws a puppy into deep water so that the pup will either have to swim or drown, I’m going to throw you into financial waters and give you a chance to make good or go under.’
“He went to his safe, twirled the combination, and came back to me with a package. He ripped off a rubber band, and I saw that the package was a big bunch of securities.
“‘Now, Reggie, my boy,’ he said, ‘here’s where you show me what there is in that noddle of yours. These securities have a value of ten thousand dollars. They’re bonds of the A. K. T. Railroad. It’s one of the safest and best managed roads in the country, and these are as good as government bonds. I’m going to put these absolutely in your hands to do with precisely as you like. Turn them into cash, pledge them, sell them, invest them—do anything you want to with them. At the end of a year come to me and tell me just what you’ve done and just what profit you’ve made, if any, from the use of them. In the meantime, I’ll give you a free hand and won’t ask you a word about them.
“‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘they’re a five-per cent. bond, and you could make five hundred dollars by merely clipping the interest coupons and presenting them when they come due. But that isn’t my idea. Any fool could use a pair of scissors. What I want you to do is to use the money, put it to work, mix it with brains, and at the end of a year come to me and show me the results.’
“You can bet that I was well stumped. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”
“I should say so!” ejaculated Joe, with a low whistle. “Ten thousand dollars! That’s an awful lot of money to have plumped down before you and to be told that it’s all yours to do with exactly as you like.”
“That’s what I told the governor as soon as I could get my breath,” said Reggie. “But he only laughed and said that he had earned it and that what he did with it was no one’s business but his own. The only condition was that I shouldn’t use it for anything except to make more. Said my allowance would go on as usual, so that I wouldn’t have to use any of the ten thousand for my living expenses.”
“Great Scott, Reggie, that was a wonderful chance for a young fellow!” cried Joe, who had grown hugely interested in the story of this favorite of fortune. “What have you done with the ten thousand?”
“What have I done with it?” echoed Reggie ruefully. “I gave it to Talham Tabbs.”
“What!” shouted Joe, jumping to his feet so violently that he overturned his chair. “What’s that you say?”
“I gave it to Talham Tabbs,” repeated Reggie, averting his eyes from those of his friend as he made the startling confession.
“But why—what——” stammered Joe blankly.
“Just to prove that an old proverb is true,” was the answer.
“What proverb?”
“‘A fool and his money are soon parted,’” replied Reggie bitterly.
CHAPTER X
REGGIE CONFESSES
Joe resumed his seat, too astounded to know what to do or say under the circumstances.
“Beg pardon for being so brusque, old fellow,” he remarked, “but really you took the ground from under my feet. What on earth led you to give your money to a man who is as mad as a March hare?”
“I’ve asked myself that same question many times since the thing happened,” answered Reggie drearily, “and the only answer I can find is that I must have been the more insane of the two.
“It’s only fair to say, though,” he went on, “that at the time I ran across him there wasn’t a trace of insanity about him. He seemed to me to be one of the cleverest men I ever met. Others thought so too, so perhaps I’m not so very much to blame after all.”
“Where and when did you first meet him?” asked Joe.
“At the Goldsboro Country Club,” answered Reggie. “You know that our folks have membership there and I run out very often. I was out there one day watching a tennis tournament when this Tabbs came strolling along and spoke to me. There seemed to be something familiar about his face and yet I couldn’t quite place him until he said he had met me one time at Morgan & Company’s in New York. Then I remembered him perfectly. I had gone down to the city on a trip with my father, and as he had business with the Morgan people, he took me along with him. Tabbs was holding an important position with the firm at the time, and he seemed to take quite a liking to me. Took me out to lunch with him and then showed me around the city. That was two or three years ago, and I hadn’t seen him since until he came to me at the Country Club.
“Of course, it was up to me to give him as good a time as I could, in return for what he had done for me in New York, and I did. Introduced him to lots of the best people in Goldsboro, took him home with me and had him stay with me for a day or two, and whizzed him about the country in my automobile. To tell the truth, it wasn’t hard to entertain him, for he was a bright and amusing talker and seemed in every way to be an all-around good fellow.”
“How did he happen to be so far away from New York City and right in the busy season, too?” asked Joe.
“That struck me as rather queer,” replied Reggie, “but he explained by saying that he was on a secret mission for his firm. Awfully mysterious and all that, don’t you know. Of course, the more mysterious he was the more curious I became. I suppose he figured on that. Anyway, after a lot of hinting and fencing about, he came right out one day and said that he was going to take me into his confidence, that I was too good a fellow to leave on the outside when I might get in on the ground floor, and a lot of rot like that, don’t you know.”
“I know, all right,” said Joe, with a smile. “I’ve had lots of tips about big things that were going to be pulled off and been urged to get aboard while there was time. Ball players are known to get good salaries, and they’re deluged with circulars and market tips of all kinds. But I never yet tried to beat Wall Street at its own game. You know what they say of it, that ‘it’s a crooked street with a graveyard at one end of it and a river at the other.’”
“I guess that description fits it, all right,” agreed his friend, “but of course I thought that Tabbs was different from an ordinary market tipster. I had seen him holding down a big job with Morgan & Company, and I naturally thought he had inside information.”
Joe had to admit that this was reasonable.
“He put me under a pledge of secrecy,” went on Reggie, “and then he opened up. Said that Morgan & Company had a big scheme for combining under one control all the electric light and power companies of the State. Claimed that he already had an agreement with the majority of them to come into the deal. The thing was to be kept under cover until everything was ripe, and then the stock would double and treble in value, and the lucky holders would make a fortune. Now was the time to buy before the big news came out.”
“Old stuff,” thought Joe to himself, although he did not give utterance to the thought for fear of wounding Reggie, who was sore enough already.
“Of course,” went on Reggie, “the first thing I thought of was the ten thousand in stocks that the governor had put in my hands to show what I could do. Here was the chance to make it twenty or thirty thousand or more, if Tabbs was right. And honest, Joe, that fellow could have convinced anybody. He was the most persuasive talker I ever met. Had facts and figures at his tongue’s end and reeled them off by the thousand. Showed me a chart of his own on which he had marked all the market fluctuations on leading stocks for ten years back. Had an answer for every objection. He was a perfect encyclopedia on everything that concerned stocks and bonds. If ever any man knew his business, it was Talham Tabbs.”
And Joe, recalling the keen face of the madman, could very well understand how Reggie would be putty in his hands.
“The upshot of it all was,” blurted out the dudish young man desperately, “that I put the whole ten thousand in his hands to turn into cash and invest for me in the securities of the different light and power companies. He was to do this quietly and secretly as he went from one place to another, and then when he had invested it all he was to turn them over to me to hold them for the rise that would come as soon as the deal was concluded.
“I didn’t do this right off the reel. I felt skittish about putting all my eggs in one basket. I wanted to put in part of the money only, but he laughed at me. Opportunity only came once to a man, he said, especially such an opportunity as that. I was dazzled by his figures, and when I thought of the pleasure it would be to prove to my father that I had more brains than he gave me credit for and knew how to double and treble my money in a few months, I gave in and went into the thing, hook, line and sinker.”
“Too bad, old fellow,” consoled Joe, who was moved to pity by the distress that showed in his friend’s face. “What happened then?”
“He went away a few days later,” continued Reggie. “Had to go to Raleigh, he said, to see some members of the legislature. He wrote to me every few days and told me he was getting along famously. Then his letters stopped. I didn’t think so much of this at first, because I knew he would be tremendously busy putting through the deal. But when three weeks passed without hearing from him I got uneasy. I wrote to him to the address of Morgan & Company, thinking they would of course know his whereabouts and forward his mail to him, and you can imagine how I felt when I got my letter back marked ‘Not here.’ I wrote then to the firm direct, and asked about Talham Tabbs. They wrote back promptly that Tabbs had once been employed by them and that they had valued him as one of their most competent men, but that a year before he had gone suddenly insane and had to be committed to an asylum. They gave me the name of the asylum so that I could write there if I wished to learn anything further about his condition, although they had been informed that his case was thought to be incurable.
“I tell you what, old man, that knocked me all in a heap. My ten thousand dollars had been put in the care of a crazy man, who, for all I knew, had turned the securities into cash and by this time might be in Canada, or Europe, or South America, or any old place.”
“It must have been a knockout blow,” said Joe.
“For a little while I thought I would go crazy myself,” continued Reggie. “I couldn’t eat or sleep, and the folks saw there was something the matter with me. Mabel was worried out of her head, and tried to get me to tell her what was the trouble.”
“Just like Mabel,” thought Joe to himself, conscious of a sudden warmth in the region of his heart.
“I think the governor rather suspected that something had gone wrong in a money way,” continued Reggie. “But he’s a thoroughbred, and since he had said he wouldn’t ask me about it for a year, he stuck to his promise.”
“Couldn’t you pick up any clue as to Tabbs’ whereabouts?” queried Joe.
“Not a thing for a long while,” was the answer. “Of course, I was handicapped because I had to keep everything under cover. The first thing I did was to make a trip to the asylum where he had been confined. The superintendent told me that Tabbs had escaped about two months before. Said he was one of the brightest and ablest men that had ever been confined there. There would be weeks at a time when he would appear to be as sane as any man. Then he would have sudden fits of violence come upon him, when they couldn’t do anything with him and had to truss him up in a strait-jacket to keep him from harming the other inmates. I suppose he must have had one of those spells come on him when he carried off the baby.”
“I suppose so,” said Joe with a shudder, as the thought of the narrow escape came up before him.
“The superintendent told me that they had been hunting for him ever since he got away but hadn’t got a trace of him. I told him then that I had met him and that he was still going by his right name. Naturally I didn’t tell him what a fool Tabbs had made of me. He was delighted to get the information I gave him and said that he would follow up the clue at once. I didn’t rely wholly on that, however, and on the quiet I put the matter in the hands of a detective agency.”
“Did that help you out any?” asked Joe.
“Not a bit,” replied Reggie disgustedly. “All they sent me was a bill for services rendered, although they kept hinting that they were right on his heels. They must have been a pretty nimble pair of heels, though, because they always got away. Don’t talk to me of detectives. ‘Defectives’ would be a better name for them.”
“How did you find out then that he might be at Riverside?” asked Joe with lively curiosity.
“By the merest chance in the world,” replied Reggie. “I was in Wilmington and when I went to the hotel and started to register I turned over the leaves to see if any of my friends were there and caught sight of Tabbs’ name. Of course I made inquiries in a hurry, and the clerk told me that he had left a week before. I went to the station and found that a man answering to his description had bought a ticket and had his baggage checked through to Riverside. Then I sent the telegram and followed it as soon as I could. Now you know the whole story.”
“Well,” said Joe, drawing a long breath, “it’s pretty bad, but it might have been worse. Now that we have Tabbs where the dogs can’t bite him, you have a chance to get your money back.”
“Yes,” agreed Reggie, “but after all it’s only a chance. No knowing what he may have done with it by this time.”
“Would he have had any trouble in turning the securities into cash?” asked Joe.
“Not the least in the world,” was the answer. “They are as easily handled almost as if they were United States currency. The mere possession of them is regarded as proof of ownership. He could go to any bank or big brokerage house in the country and turn them into cash at five minutes’ notice.”
“Well, even if he did, he may have all, or nearly all, of the money left,” said Joe hopefully. “Sol Cramer, the landlord at the hotel, said that he had a big roll of bills when he paid for his week’s board. He can’t spend any of it where he is now, at any rate.”
They discussed the matter for an hour or more and then Joe insisted that Reggie ought to get to bed.
“You’ve had a long journey,” he remarked, as he rose to show his friend to his room, “and you need a good night’s rest so as to be fit when you tackle Talham Tabbs in the morning.”