“Jim, where’s Joe?” asked Mabel, her eyes, suddenly anxious, sweeping the field.
“Talking to McRae and Robbie,” answered Jim. “He’ll be along in a minute. But say,” he added, with more interest than he had hitherto shown, “aren’t you going to answer my question?”
“Hold your horses, old chappie,” murmured Reggie. “Patience is a virtue, what?”
Seeing that, even if patience were a virtue, Jim was at the end of it, Clara hastened to explain.
“I don’t suppose you will think it very important, Jim,” she said. “But it seemed rather important to me. I’ll tell you what I know and then you can judge.”
“Sounds like a mystery,” said Jim, sitting up straight and beginning to look interested.
Mabel shuddered.
“I hope it isn’t,” she said, adding plaintively: “I don’t like mysteries.”
“It’s about that man, McCarney, your third baseman,” Clara hastened on, lacing and unlacing her fingers in an agitation she could no longer conceal. “I’ve seen him before, Jim. I saw him just before the season opened.”
“Well, what about it?” asked Jim, interested, but not showing any especial excitement. “It’s a coincidence, of course.”