Mr. Birdseye was wise in the lore of local time cards. He shook his head.
[377]
“Not a chance, Pinkie, not a chance. The only way to get out to Barstow from here that morning would be to get up at four o’clock and catch the early freight. No, sir, the crowd here won’t see the boys until we all come piling off at the union depot at twelve-forty-five. By that time I’ll be calling all those Moguls by their first names. Give me an hour; that’s all I ask—just an hour on the same train together with ’em. You know me, and from reading in the papers about ’em, you know about what kind of fellows those Moguls are. Say, Pink Egg, can’t you just close your eyes and see the look on Nick Cornwall’s face when he and all the rest see me stepping down off that train along with Swifty Megrue and old Long Leaf and the Indian, and all the outfit? I owe Nick Cornwall one anyway. You remember how shirty he got with me last year when I went to him and told him if he’d switch Gillam from short to third and put Husk Blynn second in the batting order instead of fifth, that he’d improve the strength of the team forty per cent. If he’d only a-done that, we’d have been in the money sure. But did he do it? He did not. He told me there was only one manager getting paid to run the club, and so far as he knew he was him. Manager? Huh! Look where we finished—or would have finished if the league had lasted out the season. Eight teams, and us in eighth place, fighting hard not to be in ninth.”
[378]
“Suppose, though, J. Henry, there just happens to be somebody else from Anneburg on the twelve-forty-five?”
Perhaps it was a tiny spark of envy in Mr. Fluellen’s heart which inspired him to raise this second doubt against the certainty of his friend’s coup.
“I should worry if there is!” said Mr. Birdseye. “Who else is there in this town that can talk their own language with those boys like I can? I’ll bet you they’re so blamed sick and tired of talking with ignorant, uneducated people that don’t know a thing about baseball, they’ll jump at a chance to associate with a man that’s really on to every angle of the game—inside ball and averages and standings and all that. Human nature is just the same in a twenty-thousand-a-year big leaguer as it is in anybody else, if you know how to go at him. And if I didn’t know human nature from the ground up, would I be where I am as a travelling salesman? Answer me that.”
“I guess you’re right, J. Henry,” agreed Mr. Fluellen. “Gee, I wish I could be along with you,” he added wistfully.
Mr. Birdseye shook his head in earnest discount of any such vain cravings upon Mr. Fluellen’s part. If there had been the remotest prospect of having Mr. Fluellen for a companion to share in this glory, he wouldn’t have told anything about it to Mr. Fluellen in the first place.
[379]
“Anyhow, I reckon my wife wouldn’t hear to it,” said Mr. Fluellen hopelessly. “She’s funny that way.”
“No, it wouldn’t do for you to be along either, Pink Egg,” said Mr. Birdseye compassionately but with all firmness. “You don’t know the real science of baseball the same as I do. They wouldn’t care to talk to anybody that was even the least bit off on the fine points. I was just thinking—I’ll be able to give ’em some tips about how to size up the situation here—not that they need it particularly.”
“J. Henry, you wouldn’t tip ’em off to the weak spots in the Anneburg team?” Loyalty to local ideals sharpened Mr. Fluellen’s voice with anxiety.