“Do you mean you won’t pitch to-morrow?” he asked.
“Neither to-morrow nor any other day,” snapped Morrison. “Nothing would hire me to pitch on this team after the dirty trick you’ve played bringing a fellow in to make a show of me. Think I’m a fool?”
Gardiner flushed hotly.
“Nobody could make a fool of you,” he said, with sarcastic emphasis. “You seem to have been born that way.”
The angry man disdained any reply.
“Any of my friends will have to choose now between Gardiner and me,” he went on furiously. “If they prefer playing on his team, well and good; but at that moment they cease to be my friends. Understand?”
He cast a significant glance at George Burgess, and, turning on his heel, walked rapidly toward the clubhouse.
Burgess hesitated for an instant and, with a shrug of his shoulders, slowly unbuckled his chest protector and threw it on the ground, together with his mask and mitt. Then he followed Morrison.
The flush had died out of Gardiner’s face, leaving it a little pale. His eyes traveled slowly over the faces of the remaining men.
“Well,” he said quietly, “any more?”