“Are you crazy?”
“I guess not.”
“We had trouble enough getting that confession.”
“Too much trouble,” confessed Mike.
“And now it’s destroyed!” groaned Bern, as he watched the flames char the sheet and turn it to a black film of ash, which crinkled at a breath and dissolved into fluttering fragments.
“It wasn’t any use after what happened,” declared Lynch. And he proceeded to explain his reason for thinking so. “You see,” he concluded, “that thing might have gotten me into trouble if I had kept it and any one had chanced to find it in my pocket.”
“I suppose that’s right,” muttered Bern, his thin lips pulled back from the points of his sharp white teeth. “Yes, I see you’re right, Mike, but I swear I’d like to get some sort of a twist on that fellow Tucker. He’s playing the position on the nine that I ought to fill. I’m a better shortstop than Tucker ever was or ever will be.”
“Perhaps you are,” nodded Mike, “but you’re not one of Richard Merriwell’s petsy-wetsies. Therefore you have no show to play on the team.”
“That’s not the reason why I’m not playing on the team.”
“Eh? It isn’t?”