Tompkinson cleared his throat.
“As I was saying a little while ago,” he remarked, “I don’t think that it’s a good thing for the game to have the Giants win so steadily. I have a lot of friends who feel the same way. In fact, we felt so strongly about it, especially after we’d heard that your arm had been burned at the training camp, that we backed our judgment and our feelings to the extent of putting up quite a little pool of money that this wasn’t the Giants’ year to win. Now that you’ve come back so strongly we stand to lose something like two hundred thousand dollars.”
“I see,” said Joe, trying to restrain himself, though his blood was boiling.
“Well,” went on Tompkinson. “We’re not the men to ask for anything without giving something in return. And I don’t think you’d be the man to take fifty thousand dollars without having a kindly feeling toward the men who gave it.”
“You mean that you want me to throw enough games to make the Giants lose the pennant?” asked Joe, still trying to keep his voice steady.
“You have a disconcerting way of putting things,” replied Tompkinson, with a smile. “I—ah—just thought that if you found out suddenly that your arm was burned a little more seriously than the doctors thought and that you had to let up in your work and, ah——”
Joe rose slowly from his seat.
“I can think better when I’m on my feet,” he explained, as he strolled toward the side of the room.
Harrish and Tompkinson exchanged a smile of evil triumph as they rose also and walked over to where Joe was standing. Their prey was hooked!
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Joe murmured dreamily.