“How do you like the new fan, Joe?” Jim asked, a day or two later.
“I can’t say that I’m stuck on him much,” responded Joe. “He seems to be pretty well up in baseball dope, and that in itself I suppose ought to be a recommendation, to a ball player especially, but somehow or other, he doesn’t hit me very hard.” 163
“I think he’s very handsome,” remarked Mabel, with a mischievous glance at Joe, and that young man’s instinctive dislike of the newcomer became immediately more pronounced.
“He seems very friendly and pleasant,” put in Clara. “Why don’t you like him, Joe?”
“How can I tell?” replied her brother. “I simply know I don’t.”
CHAPTER XX
IN MIKADO LAND
But if Braxton sensed the slight feeling of antipathy which Joe felt for him, he gave no sign of it, and Joe himself, who wanted to be strictly just, took pains to conceal it.