“Don’t take my arm off, boys,” he laughingly protested. “I need the old soup bone in my business.”
“I wish I could tell you all about it, fellows,” he went on, in reply to their eager request for particulars, “but honestly, I don’t know any more about it than you do yet. I suppose I’ll get a contract to sign in a day or two, and perhaps there’ll be something about it in the New York papers when they get here tomorrow morning. All I know now is that I’m going to play this year in New York. That is,” he jested, “unless McRae finds out he’s been buncoed and fires me.”
“Swell chance of anything like that!” exclaimed Tom Davis. “I’ll bet you’ll take your regular turn in the box from the very start.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” answered Joe. “McRae puts a great deal of faith in his veterans, and the chances are I’ll have to warm the bench until some of the others fall down. You know how it was with Markwith, the ‘eleven thousand dollar beauty.’ McRae kept him on the bench for nearly two years, scarcely using him at all, but giving him a chance to learn the ‘inside stuff’ by watching the others. Then when he was ripe, McRae put him in and he went through the league like a prairie fire. He may do the same thing with me.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” declared Tom, loyally. “You’re as good a pitcher now as Markwith ever dared to be. Besides Markwith came from a minor league while you’ve already had a year’s experience in the National League with St. Louis.”
“I’m afraid it’s your friendship rather than your judgment that’s talking now, Tom,” answered Joe. “Markwith has won nineteen straight, right off the reel, and that’s some little record, let me tell you. But I surely am going to do my best, not only on my account but so as not to disappoint my old friends. Take off your coat now and I’ll toss you up a few just to get my wing good and supple.”
Tom complied, and there was some spirited pitching practice which demonstrated that Joe was in fine fettle. All his curves worked finely, and there was a world of speed behind the high fast ball that he occasionally cut loose.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to stop now,” said Joe reluctantly, after half an hour of good practice, as he looked at his watch. “I’ve got to stop at Brigg’s store to get a couple of bamboo poles, and then I have to go down to the station to meet a friend whom I rather expect by the four-thirty-five. I’m sorry, too, for I’m just getting warmed up and I’d like to keep going for an hour yet.”
He said goodby to his chums, and, after having stopped in the store to make his purchases, strolled down to the railroad station, to await the possible coming of Reggie. He was eager to find out all the meaning of the queer message he had received, and it is barely possible that he was still more eager to have some tidings of Reggie’s sister.