Sometimes I think I’d like to see if I couldn’t give him a run for his money, but—well, you know how I’m situated, and—what’s the use!
“Not a bit of use, young man—not a bit,” muttered Bob Hutchinson. “When I get through with you, it isn’t likely you’ll have a reputation that’ll make you particularly attractive to a discriminating young lady.”
Hutchinson was much disappointed when he came to the abrupt breaking off of the unfinished letter in the middle of the last page, and failed to find anything in it that would prove that Locke and Hazelton of Princeton were one and the same.
He decided at once to purloin the final page, leaving the others as he had found them. He would relock the desk when he departed from the room, and Locke, missing the final sheet, might fancy that somehow it had slipped from the others and been tossed into the near-by wastebasket, to be carried off by the maid.
In one of the pigeonholes were two letters. Both were addressed on the envelopes to “Mr. Tom Locke.” The first one opened contained only the post-card picture of a strikingly pretty young girl, who was laughingly exhibiting some fetching dimples. Across the bottom of the picture was written: “To ‘Big Bub,’ with love, from ‘Tid.’”
A look of understanding drifted across Hutchinson’s face as he gazed at the picture, and, returning it to the envelope, he observed:
“So that’s how you’re ‘situated,’ Mr. Tom Locke; that’s the reason why you are refraining from trying to give King a run for his money with the parson’s daughter. If you were going to hang around this town long enough, I’ll guarantee you would forget about ‘Tid’ and make an effort to get into the running, just the same. It may be lucky for King that you’ll be going away very soon.”
He returned the picture to the pigeonhole, and investigated the contents of the other letter, consisting of a single sheet of paper, on which a brief note had apparently been scrawled with much haste.
The handwriting was masculine, and there was no date line to tell from whence it had come, but the first two words were enough to give Hutchinson considerable satisfaction. They were: “Dear Hazelton.” With some trouble, the manager deciphered what followed:
Don’t worry any more about the Kernell case. Wyloft & Pettengall have informed me that it will surely be settled out of court. I’ll have further information from them in a few days, but I’m sure there’ll be no necessity for you to come back here until you get through with your baseball job.