“Reggie, old chap,” said Joe dryly, “I could see that myself, without the aid of a monocle.”
“But what do you think it means?” asked Mabel, her pretty forehead puckered in a troubled frown. “How could anybody make fifty thousand dollars out of baseball all at once?”
“They couldn’t, if they made it straight,” returned Joe. “Of course there are various ways known to crooks by which a nifty little fortune may be made——”
“Such as throwing games and all that sort of thing?” queried Reggie.
Joe nodded.
“There are plenty of other ways too, I reckon, once you get wise to them,” he said. “The worst of it is,” he added, with a sudden clenching of his hands and a fierce look in his eyes, “that rascals like this Lemblow and McCarney not only plot against a special team or a certain group of men, but go further than that, as you yourself said, Reggie, and attempt to put a stain on the name of all baseball. The scoundrels!” he added, throwing back his head with a fierce gesture that made Mabel proud of him, even while she was half afraid. “Whatever rotten thing they’re working up, they’ll find they have me to reckon with.”
“Me too, Joe,” said Jim grimly. “Don’t forget me.”
The happy week that the boys spent with the girls flew by as though on wings. Every moment they could spare from the duties of their profession was spent in visiting with them the sights of the metropolis, and they did things in royal style. In the afternoons the girls were in a box at the Polo Grounds, and their hearts swelled with pride as they saw the splendid work of Joe and Jim and realized how high they stood in the affections of the followers of the game.