“Two weeks from to-morrow; Y.M.C.A. Team. They’ll beat us, of course, but Bat says it’ll give us good practice.”
“That’s a Saturday, isn’t it? I guess I’ll try and get out to see it. How are you hitting, Sid?”
“Rotten! So we all are. Bat had us at the net over an hour yesterday and he was hopping mad at the way we missed them.” Sidney chuckled. “He told Buster he swung at the ball with—what was it he said? Oh, ‘with all the ineffable grace of a derrick!’ Buster was so mad he almost swallowed his tongue trying to keep it still!”
“That must have been hard for Buster,” replied Tom, with a laugh. “Guess I’ll certainly have to get out some day and see your wonderful team at work!”
Sidney gazed at him reproachfully. “If you were half-way decent,” he said, “you’d come out and help instead of poking fun at us!”
At Mrs. Tully’s boarding-house dinner was served at the fashionable hour of six-thirty, and quite often Tom had nearly a half-hour to wait after getting home from the store. Sometimes he made use of the interim to study the morrow’s lessons, sometimes he read the morning paper, turning first of all to the baseball and sporting news, and sometimes, if the weather was fair, he sat on the front steps and conversed with whoever turned up there. With the advent of warmer weather it was almost always pleasanter on the front steps than indoors. The grass in the little plot in front began to take on a tinge of new green and the shrubbery that hid the party fence along the side-yard showed swollen buds. One spring-like evening, a day or two after the last recorded talk with Sidney, Tom came downstairs after washing for dinner and seated himself on the top step at Mrs. Tully’s. None of the other boarders were there and after a moment Tom, hands in pockets, possessed of a restlessness that made sitting still uncomfortable, wandered past the newly raked flower bed and into the side-yard. There was a long stretch of turf there, flanked on one side by the hedge and fence and on the other by a gravel walk which led along the side of the house, under the parlour and dining-room windows, to a gate in a brown board fence. This fence hid the back-yard where the clothes were dried and where the ashes were kept until, on Monday mornings, Mr. Tully, attired in blue overalls, rolled them out in four big galvanised iron barrels to the sidewalk, whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Just what connection there might be between ashes and the star-spangled banner, Tom couldn’t make out; but Mr. Tully always whistled that particular tune and nothing else on such occasions.
Viewing the stretch of turf which in olden days would have made a fine bowling green, and the brown board fence, Tom had an idea. Ceasing his own whistling and bringing his hands smartly from his pockets, he turned and hurried up two flights of stairs to his room. When he returned he had a baseball in his hand. Measuring off the proper distance, Tom faced the division fence and began to throw the ball at it. It was rather a noisy operation and every moment he expected to hear remonstrance from Mrs. Tully. But he had thrown and recovered the ball a dozen times and his arm was getting nicely limbered up before anything happened. Then footsteps crunched on the path and Tom looked up to see Mr. George observing him with smiling interest.
The railroad detective was rather disappointing in appearance, judged by one’s usual notion of what a detective should look like. He was tall and square-shouldered, had a large face with high cheek-bones and a prominent nose, and wore a black moustache that was clipped short. There were rather heavy brows over a pair of mild brown eyes and his cheeks were rather ruddy. Altogether, he looked prosperous and healthy and, above all, peaceable. He invariably wore dark Oxford clothes, but had a passion, it seemed, for loudly hued neckties. A rather heavy gold fob dangled into sight occasionally from a waistcoat pocket and a very big diamond ring adorned a finger of his left hand. At table Mr. George was not talkative. Neither was he taciturn. He never, however, made mention of his business. He and Tom always spoke when they met, but beyond that their acquaintance had not progressed. Now, though, he began conversation at once.
“What are you pitching?” he asked, crossing the grass to a position behind the boy.
“Just an out-curve, or trying to,” replied Tom, a trifle embarrassed.