Tramp, tramp, tramp! Regular, rhythmic, the sound of their marching was like the thunder of a great army. Ogden Wilmerding, hurrying toward a coveted place in the lower stand, felt the thrill which that sound brings to the heart of every fan who has hibernated reluctantly for six long months.
“Nothing like it,” he chuckled as he was swept along. “This looks a lot like opening day,” he went on, peering over the top of the last row of seats. “I’m not so sorry as I was over getting back too late for that.”
He soon saw that it would be impossible to get the seat he wanted. The section directly behind the plate was filled in solid. For a moment he stood there peering down at the reporters’ bench in a vain hope that some one he knew—Jack Stillman, perhaps—might find room for him there. He saw places enough; but neither Stillman nor any other of his newspaper friends had yet appeared.
“Hang it all!” he muttered. “Why didn’t I start half an hour earlier, or wire from Boston for a box?”
“Because you’re the same lazy old slob you were three years ago,” chuckled a voice in his ear.
Wilmerding whirled, his eyes popping, stared for a second in speechless amazement at the young man against whose shoulder he had been almost leaning. Then he fell upon him with a roar of delight.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he gurgled. “Snow, you old cut-up, where in time have you been? I thought you’d croaked years ago. Shove along and give me a chance. You’re spread over two seats, easy.”
Snowden Pell obeyed laughingly. The man beside him, taking in the situation with a good-natured grin, likewise moved, and Wilmerding was accommodated with a seat.
“It takes a lot to put me out of business,” Pell chuckled when his friend had settled beside him. “I’m very far from being a dead one, as they’ll tell you out in Seattle.”