“He always does,” murmured Mabel proudly, and somehow Joe’s hand managed to find hers under the table.
“It was a great game,” he said, smiling at recollection of it. “Luck was with me.”
“Do you boys play to-day?” asked Clara, adding with a little bounce of delight: “Oh, I’m crazy to see the game!”
“Jim’s the lucky one,” said Joe. “He’s scheduled to pitch. And I tell you, you girls are going to see some classy work. Jim has the little ball trained so it comes to his whistle.”
“Spare my blushes,” begged Jim, adding, with a grin: “Anyway, listen who’s talking!”
“’Spose everything’s goin’ smoothly, is it?” queried Reggie, with a lift of his eyebrow that sent the monocle sliding down the front of his waistcoat. “No trouble with the good old teammates? Everything jolly and happy?”
Both Jim and Joe looked at him quizzically. Was it possible that Reggie knew something of their suspicions of Reddy Hupft or McCarney? It seemed hardly possible. Probably the question was merely an idle one.
“Everything’s in tip-top shape,” answered Joe, after the barest perceptible pause. “The boys are going at top speed and if we keep on the way we’ve started we ought to beat last year’s record.”
Clara opened her lips as though to speak, then evidently changed her mind. But as Jim’s eyes met hers it seemed to him they were the least bit anxious.
As for Mabel, she had reached out and laid a little hand on Joe’s arm.