Lefty o' the Big League

by Burt L. Standish

On the way back to the hotel several of the older men who had been up before him during the afternoon paused and made brief, half-joshing comments on his improvement. Stillman was enthusiastic in his praise, and even one of his brother reporters delivered himself of a more guarded opinion, practically to the same effect. To be sure, the silence of the other cubs was deep and absolute. Not one of them opened his head to Lefty on any subject, much less to tell him that he was doing well. Evidently the ban against him was still in force.

In spite of this, however, Locke was feeling more hopeful, more assured, more satisfied that he could make good, than at any time since his arrival at training camp.

“I’ll write Janet to-night,” he thought, while he was dressing, “and tell her all about it. I should have done it before, but things have been pretty uncertain.”

Janet might have been a sister, but—she wasn’t. Any one observing the length of the letter Lefty wrote after dinner, and the pains taken with its composition, would have guessed that instantly. A fellow rarely sends more than four pages of closely written hotel paper to a relative, and as for tearing up a nearly finished sheet, and rewriting it—well, that settled the question.

When the epistle had been carefully sealed and the envelope directed, Locke found he was out of stamps, and purchased some at the desk. He had just affixed one to the letter when Buck Fargo appeared and pounced on him.

“Been looking for you, kid,” the backstop announced, taking Locke by the arm. “Come out with me for a little walk. I want to talk to you.”

Locke acquiesced readily and, without turning, reached back for the letter he had left lying on the desk. He was so taken up with wondering what Fargo had on his mind that his action was really little more than mechanical. His fingers closed over an envelope which he thrust into a side pocket, and the two walked briskly away.

Unfortunately for Lefty the proprietor of the Hatchford was of an economical turn of mind. Having been considerably fretted by every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Ashland dropping in and using his letter paper ad libitum, he instituted the system of having a supply at the desk, and nowhere else. When a guest of the house wanted stationery he helped himself. A townsman could do the same, if he wished. But the mere fact of having to face the argus-eyed clerk, instead of slipping quietly to a well-furnished desk, acted as a strong deterrent.

When Lefty bought his stamps the supply of envelopes had dwindled to three, two of them stuck inside the flap of the third. They lay close beside his letter on the desk, and when he reached back without looking it was the three empty envelopes, stuck together as one, that he picked up and put into his pocket.

His carefully composed epistle lay, face upward, where he had left it. The clerk was busy with his books, and no one else happened to see it until Bert Elgin, as immaculately garbed as he had been the night before, on his way to the street, paused to light a cigarette.