“We’ll except present company,—for the sake of politeness,” responded Curtis, with a malicious smile hovering about his lips. Marks always bored him. “Tompkins is a fool, but not of the silly, show-off kind like Taylor. He’s got the stuff in him to make a good pitcher and a chance to distinguish himself by winning the Hillbury game; but he doesn’t care a rap whether he pitches or not, and he doesn’t behave himself as he ought.”
“I don’t understand that. He seems very regular in his training and practice. He always works hard out here, I’m sure.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Curtis made haste to reply. “Tommy is straight; he’ll do what he agrees to,—a good deal better than your friend Taylor. The trouble with Tommy is that he’s always trying fool tricks, like a small boy in a grammar school. Some day he’ll go too far, and then there’ll be an end of Tommy. Sands ought to sit on him.”
“Sands tries to, but it doesn’t do any good,” replied Marks. “He doesn’t care for Sands.”
“Isn’t there some one he does care for?” asked Curtis.
“The only fellow he seems to think anything of is Melvin, the truly good,” answered Marks, with a sneer. “No one else has any influence over him, and I doubt if Melvin can make any impression on him. Tommy is altogether too nutty.”
That night Curtis and Sands appeared at Melvin’s room with serious faces. Dick heard their tale in silence.
“I’ll tell you what I should do,” he said at length. “I’d give him a good warning and then I’d fill his place, pitcher or no pitcher. If he can’t keep out of scrapes, he’s bound to go sooner or later; and if he’s surely going, the longer you wait the worse it will be. No fellow who won’t take responsibility or won’t keep training belongs on a Seaton team, anyway.”
Sands shook his head dolefully. “That’s all very well in theory, but you can’t make pitchers to order, and Tommy is our only good one. He works hard, too, uses his head well and improves right along. If he could only be kept out of mischief, I couldn’t ask for a better man.”
“And we thought you might have some influence with him,” said Curtis, coming in his usual fashion directly to the point. “Won’t you tackle him, and see if you can’t get some sense into his head?”