“I don’t mind not playing, sir,” Tom assured him. “And—and I wouldn’t feel right, anyway, about letting you pay me wages and then not being there.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Cummings. “I guess it wouldn’t break us. Who’s this coming?”
“Sidney Morris, sir. Oh, that’s Mr. Talbot with him!”
“Thought so. Looks as if they were coming here, don’t it?”
It did, and in a moment Sidney was introducing the coach to Mr. Cummings. Tom realised then that Sidney had brought Mr. Talbot over for a purpose. And the purpose was not long in declaring itself. There was a minute of polite conversation between the two men and then the coach got down to business.
“Mr. Cummings,” he asked, “isn’t there some way by which we can get the services of Tom Pollock here? We need him pretty badly on the team. We’re in a regular hole as far as pitching goes. Of course I realise that he’s working for you and that you need him at your store, but it seems to me that in some way or other we might arrange things so he could pitch for us at least occasionally. We might not need him all the time. If he could pitch, say, one game a week, it would be a big thing for the school.”
“I was just talking it over with Tom,” replied Mr. Cummings. “If it can be arranged, I’ll be glad, Mr. Talbot. But Tom says he would have to do a lot of practising with the team. Frankly, Mr. Talbot, if I had the whole say of it, I’d send him out here every afternoon, but my partner, Mr. Wright, isn’t—well, quite as sympathetic toward baseball as I am!”
“I see. As to practising, why, Pollock’s right. But under the circumstances I guess we could be easy with him. You don’t expect a pitcher to do much more than play his position, you know. I guess we’d forgive him if he didn’t show up very brilliantly at bat and at fielding. What we want is someone who can stand up against some of the big teams we’re scheduled to meet this month and next and give us a chance to win now and then. We’ve got a pretty fair team this year. They’re smart fielders and they’ll do pretty well at bat in another week or so. But we’re certainly shy on pitchers, Mr. Cummings.”