"I didn't do anything this afternoon, except sit around in my ball togs," Fred grumbled.
"I hope you'll have a few good games to pitch this season," his father went on. "You worked hard enough, and I spent money enough on the effort to prepare you."
"You can't beat some people's luck—-unless you do it with a club," grumbled Fred, absently.
"Eh?" asked his father, looking up sharply from his plate. But the boy did not explain.
Late that night, however, breaking training rules for the tenth time, Fred was out on the sly to meet Tip Scammon. The pair of them laid plans that aimed to stop Dick Prescott's career as High School pitcher.
CHAPTER XIX
SOME MEAN TRICKS LEFT OVER
Mr. Schimmelpodt had offered that fifty dollars in a moment of undue excitement.
For two or three days afterward he wondered if he couldn't find some way out of "spending" the money that would yet let him keep his self-respect.
Finding, at last, that he could not, he wrote out the check and mailed it. He pinned the check to a half-sheet of paper on which he wrote, "Rah mit Prescott!"