“I s’pose they all have it in for me,” he muttered.
The next instant he saw Jim Brennan bearing down upon him, his face more florid than ever, his sharp eyes glinting.
“Good night!” the southpaw murmured. “Here’s my finish.”
Instinctively he rose to his feet and stood there, nervously juggling his glove, his eyes fixed upon the approaching manager, waiting for the storm to break.
CHAPTER XIII
THE DISCHARGED WAITER
Lefty drew one sleeve across his perspiring face, and stared at the square, sturdy back of the retreating manager.
“Whew!” he muttered. “And then some!”
On second thought, he withdrew the comment. Jim Brennan had left nothing to be said, nothing to the imagination. In stinging phrases, which bit like acid and made the pitcher wince and grit his teeth, he had told his latest recruit exactly what he thought of such a disgrace among ball players.
He applied to Locke every epithet in his repertory—he had a vocabulary the width and breadth and startling nature of which was unusual even among Big League managers—and Lefty was obliged to stand there and swallow everything. He had nothing to say, no excuse to make for his behavior. He might have explained everything by telling Brennan of the glass of beer which he was certain had been drugged. But that would have put the whole crowd in bad, and Lefty was no telltale.