The sporting editor pulled himself viciously away from his typewriter.
"Ty Cobb—Dry sob—By mob—"
"Oh, I beg your pardon!"
"Can't you see when a poem is about to die a-borning?" he asked furiously.
"I am sorry—and perhaps I might help you a little," I suggested with becoming meekness. "How's this?—High job—Nigh rob—"
I paused and he began writing hurriedly. Looking up again he threw me a smile.
"Bully! Grace Christie, you're the light o' my life," he announced, "and—and of course that blamed Englishman was born in a cabin, if that's what you want to know."
"It's not that I care, but—they always are," I explained. "They're born in a cabin, come across in the steerage amid terrific storms—Why is it that everybody's story of steerage crossing is stormy?—It seems to me it would be bad enough without that—then he sold papers for two years beneath the cart-wheels around the Battery, and by sheer strength of brain and brawn, has elevated himself into the proud privilege of being able to die in a 'carstle' when it suits his convenience."
The sporting editor looked solicitous.
"And now, if I were you, to keep from wearing myself out with talking, I'd get on the car and ride out to Glendale Park," he advised.