“Then,” asked the southpaw, “why is he pitching?”
“Tell me! I’ve done a little prognosticating over that question.”
“You say he does not talk about himself. How do you–”
“Let me elucidate, if I can. I told you I ran across Jones in Alaska. I saw him pitch in a baseball match in Nome. How he came to ingratiate himself into that contest I am unable to state. Nobody seemed able to tell me. All I found out about him was that he was one of three partners who had a valuable property somewhere up in the Jade Mountain region–not a prospect, but a real, bony-fido mine. Already they had received offers for the property, and any day they could sell out for a sum salubrious enough to make them all scandalously wealthy. They had entered into some sort of an agreement that bound them all to hold on until two of the three should vote to sell; Jones was tied up under this contraction.
“I had grown weary of the vain search for the root of all evil. For me that root has always been more slippery than a squirming eel; every time I thought I had it by the tail it would wriggle out of my eager clutch and get away. I longed for the fleshpots of my own native heath. Watching that ball game in Nome, my blood churned in my veins until it nearly turned to butter. Once more, in my well-fertilized fancy, I saw myself towering the country with my Wind Jammers; and, could I secure Jonesy for my star flinger, I knew I would be able to make my return engagement a scintillating and scandalous success. With him for a nucleus, I felt confident that I could assemble together a bunch of world beaters. I resolved to go after Jones. I went, without dalliance. I got him corralled in a private room and locked the door on him.
“Mate, I am a plain and simple soul, given not a jot or tittle to exaggeration, yet I am ready to affirm–I never swear; it’s profane–that I had the tussle of my life with Jones. Parenthetically speaking, we wrestled all over that room for about five solid hours. I had supplied myself with forty reams of writing paper, a bushel basket full of lead pencils, and two dictionaries. When I finally subdued Jones, I was using a stub of the last pencil in the basket, was on the concluding sheet of paper, had contracted writer’s cramp, and the dictionaries were mere torn and tattered wrecks. In the course of that argument, I am certain I wrote every word in the English language, besides coining a few thousand of my own. I had practically exhausted every form of persuasion, and was on the verge of lying down and taking the count. Then, by the rarest chance, I hit upon the right thing. I wrote a paregoric upon the joys of traveling around over the United States from city to city, from town to town, of visiting every place of importance in the whole broad land, of meeting practically every living human being in the country who was alive and deserved to be met. Somehow that got him; I don’t know why, but it did. I saw his eyes gleam and his somber face change as he read that last wild stab of mine. It struck home; he agreed to go. I had conquered.
“Now, mark ye well, the amount of his salary had not a whit to do with it, and he entertained absolutely no ambish to become a baseball pitcher. He was compelled to leave his partners up there running the mine, and to rely upon their honesty to give him a square deal. You have been told how he promulgates around over every new place he visits and stares strangers out of countenance. Whether or not he’s otherwise wrong in his garret, he’s certainly ‘off’ on that stunt. That’s how I’m able to keep him on the parole of this club of mine.”
“In short, he’s a sort of monomaniac?”
“Perhaps that’s it.”
Lefty did a bit of thinking. “You’ve been touring the smaller cities and the towns in which an independent ball team would be most likely to draw. In the large cities of a Big League circuit there are thousands upon thousands of persons Jones has never met. He could work a whole season in such a circuit and continue to see hosts of strangers every time he visited any one of the cities included. Under such circumstances he would have the same incentive that he has now. If he can be induced to make the change, I’ll take a chance on him, and I’ll see that you are well paid to use your persuasive powers to lead him to accept my proposition.”