"I don't blame you."
If Joe could have seen Shalleg and Wessel talking to a certain "tough" looking character, after the game, and at the same time motioning in his direction, he would have felt added uneasiness.
"Oh, let's go out to some summer garden and cool off," proposed Rad after supper. It was a hot night, and sitting about the hotel was irksome.
"All right," agreed Joe, and they started for a car. The same "tough" looking character who had been talking with Wessel and Shalleg took the car as well.
Coming back, after sitting through an open-air moving picture performance, Joe and Rad found all the cars crowded. It was an open one, and Joe and Rad had given their seats to ladies, standing up and holding to the back of the seat in front of them. Just beyond Joe was a burly chap, the same one who had left the hotel at the time they did. He kept his seat.
Then, as the car reached a certain corner, this man got up hurriedly.
"Let me past! I want to get off!" he exclaimed, in unnecessarily rough tones to Joe, at the same time pressing hard against him.
"Certainly," the young pitcher replied, removing his hands from the seat in front of him. At that moment the car stopped with a sudden jerk, and the fellow grabbed Joe by the right arm, twisting it so that the ball player cried out, involuntarily.
"'Scuse me!" muttered the fellow. "I didn't mean to grab youse so hard. I didn't know youse was so tender," he sneered.
"Seems to me you could have grabbed the seat," objected Joe, wincing with pain.