He wheeled round and took a few steps across the lobby. Suddenly he turned back.
“Mebbe you’re thinking of that fine offer you say was made by the Blue Stockings?” he sneered. “I wouldn’t give much for your chances with Jack Kennedy.”
Lefty’s eyes were blazing. His lips parted for a hot retort, but he seemed to change his mind and choke it down. For an instant he stood absolutely still. Then, slowly, he turned and looked at Fargo.
Neither man spoke.
CHAPTER XXXVI
DROPPED OUT OF SIGHT
The quickness with which a man can be forgotten is never flattering to his self-esteem. For a full month Lefty Locke had been a member of the Hornets’ training camp squad. During all that time he had been well liked by the majority of the older men, and admitted by some to terms of intimacy which are rarely accorded a new recruit. Ever since the strenuous contest with the team of Texas bushers his fellow cubs had also made him one of them in every sense of the word.
Then came the catastrophe. For a brief space his name was in every mouth. The players took sides on the question of Brennan’s judgment, some contending that the manager was right, others voicing their continued faith in the disgraced player.
But with the departure of Locke from Ashland, followed swiftly by that of the entire squad, the subject soon palled. There was so much else of vital personal interest that even those who had championed the unfortunate pitcher’s cause became more and more indifferent. Some, even, hearing the cleverly phrased traducements which Bert Elgin never lost a chance to utter regarding his former rival, came to the conclusion that they had been deceived. Jim Brennan rarely made a mistake in sizing up a man. There must, after all, have been a yellow streak in the young pitcher which he successfully concealed from all save the lynx-eyed manager.
So at the end of one short week it is doubtful whether more than three men out of all that number wasted a single thought on the youngster who had, a brief time before, been so popular with them.