Shortly after breakfast, Saturday, Bob Hutchinson rapped on the door of Tom Locke’s room, and was invited to come in. He entered, bearing a newspaper in his hand, and found Locke writing at a small desk furnished by the hotel proprietor on particular request.
“Good morning,” said Tom, evincing a shade of surprise at the call. “Have a chair.” He put aside the pen, and turned his own chair from the desk.
“This unfortunate contention over you,” Hutchinson said, “seems to be creating considerable disturbance. To say the least, it’s annoying.”
“I quite agree on that point,” nodded the pitcher, “and it is far more annoying to me than it can possibly be to any one else.”
“I should think it might be, although I wish to state that it has jarred me some. I’d like to know whether we have a good claim to you or not. Have you seen the Bancroft News this morning?”
“No.”
“Here it is. You’ll find something of interest concerning you here in the sporting department.”
He handed over the newspaper, indicating the article mentioned, and sat down. Not once did he take his cold eyes off Locke’s face as the latter read the piece pointed out.
The News has learned that a warm controversy is in progress over a certain remarkable young left-handed pitcher who has created a decided sensation by his phenomenal slabwork for one of Bancroft’s strong rivals in the Northern League. The man in question is said to be a college pitcher who is playing under an assumed name, this discovery being made by our astute manager, Mr. Riley, who is certainly on the job every minute. To put one over on Michael Riley it is necessary to catch him napping, and the sleepless-eyed sleuth of yellow fiction is a Rip Van Winkle compared with Mike.
In ferreting out the identity of this young southpaw wizard, our manager found that the dangerous twirler who has twice humbled the hard-hitting “Bans”—we prefer this abbreviated familiar name for the team, although it is commonly known by another—is a prominent college star with whom Riley was negotiating as long ago as last December, and, as there is a league rule forbidding any team in the organization to dicker with a player who has made overtures to, or entered into correspondence with, another team, Mike lost no time in asserting his claim to this man. The team that has the coveted man, however, is naturally quite reluctant to give him up, and it seems now that the case must be settled by a meeting of the league directors, which will probably be called some time next week.