“Not at all,” grinned Joe. “It’s because the Chinamen are the greatest imitators on earth. He saw that Larry missed the first two and so he did the same. He thought it was part of the game!”
CHAPTER XXIII
AN EMBARRASSED RESCUER
On the long trip to Australia the tourists encountered the most severe storm of the journey. In fact, it was almost equal to the dreaded typhoon, and there were times when, despite the staunchness of the vessel, the faces of the captain and the officers were lined with anxiety.
After two days and nights, however, of peril, the storm blew itself out and the rest of the journey was made over serene seas and under cloudless skies.
One night after the girls had retired, Joe and Jim, together with McRae and Braxton, were sitting in the smoking room. The conversation had been of the kind that always prevails when baseball “fans” get together.
After a while Jim accompanied McRae to the latter’s cabin to discuss some details of Jim’s contract for the coming season, leaving Joe and Braxton as the sole occupants of the room.
Joe had never been able to overcome the 192 instinctive antipathy that he had felt toward Braxton from the first, but he had kept this under restraint, and Braxton himself, though he might have suspected this feeling, was always suave and urbane.