“Well, we don’t care for your money. What are you doing here? The bleachers for yours!”
“He came—I think he came to see me,” spoke Joe, softly, and he reached for the other’s reluctant hand. “I have met him before.”
“Oh,” said Gregory, and there was a queer note in his voice. “I guess we’ve all met him before, and none of us are the better for it. You probably don’t know him as well as the rest of us, Joe.”
“He—he saved my life,” faltered the unfortunate old ball player.
“In a way that was a pity,” returned Gregory, coolly—cuttingly, Joe thought, “for you’re no good to yourself, Dutton, nor to anyone else, as near as I can make out. I told you I didn’t want you hanging around my grounds, and I don’t. Now be off! If I find you here again I’ll hand you over to the police!”
Joe expected an outburst from Dutton, but the man’s spirit was evidently broken. For an instant—just for an instant—he straightened up and looked full at Gregory. Then he seemed to shrink in his clothes and turned to shuffle away.
“All—all right,” he mumbled. “I’ll keep away. But you’ve got one fine little pitcher in that boy, and I didn’t want to see him lose his nerve and get discouraged—as I often did. That—that’s why I spoke to him.”
Poor Joe felt that he had rather made a mess of it in speaking to Dutton, but, he said afterward, he would have done the same thing over again.
“You needn’t worry about Matson,” said the manager, with a sneer. “I’ll look after Joe—I’ll see that he doesn’t lose his nerve—or get discouraged.”
“I—I hope you do,” said the old player, and then, with uncertain gait, he walked off as the victorious Pittston players swarmed in. The game was over.