Joe shrugged his shoulders.
“No telling,” he answered. “I had no proof, you know. No witnesses, only my word. They would have let me off, probably, but it would have made an ugly story—something for Hupft and McCarney to chuckle over. No, sir, it’s lucky for me I found a means of exit.”
“Even if you did nearly break your neck,” added Jim.
“You notice I didn’t,” laughed Joe.
As the two were leaving the clubhouse Joe grasped his friend’s arm and reiterated what he had said more than once:
“Not a word of this to Mabel, you know, old man, or Clara either. It would only worry them, and they’ve had enough to worry over since Clara overheard McCarney and Lemblow in their scheming. Not a word!”
“Not a word!” returned Jim emphatically.
As the chums approached the diamond they looked at Hupft and McCarney, who were tossing the ball to each other—looked at them with a more than ordinary degree of interest.
Aside from the suspicion of a black rim around Reddy’s left eye and a slight swelling of McCarney’s naturally thick and heavy upper lip, no sign could be seen of the hearty fight in which they two and Joe had participated.
“That’s tough luck,” Joe murmured, in a crestfallen aside to Jim. “I surely thought I landed at least a couple of good rights. It seems as though, someway or other, I’d missed doing my duty.”