"What are you talking about?" he cried. "Rain stopped the game right after the fifth. Saw I had barely time to get into my togs and catch that three-twelve, so I hustled."
Rackliff started to laugh, but finished with a hollow cough. "Bet I've caught a rotten cold," he gasped. "The game went for the full nine innings. Didn't begin to rain until I was pretty near halfway home."
Phil was struck dumb for the moment, and before he could recover Hooker, having heard their voices, came running out to the carriage house, calling to Rackliff. Springer followed the drenched and complaining city youth into the shelter of the building, where Roy recognized him and seemed to betray embarrassment.
"Take your old machine," said Rackliff, "and I hope it may be my everlasting finish if I ever ride another rod on it. Look at me! I'm a complete wreck, and all because you were too blamed stingy to lend me the price of carfare from Clearport. This suit is ruined, and I'm soaked to the bone. You ought to use an axe on the thing next time it gets out of order, Hooker."
"And these are the thanks I get for furnishing some means of transportation," said Roy resentfully. "Well, I don't know that I should expect anything else."
Herbert, producing his cigarette case, gave a little half-muttered sigh of relief when he found that the contents of the case had escaped a wetting.
"Gimme a match, one of you fellows," he coughed. "I'm just crazy for a smoke. This has been the rottenest day I've seen in a long time."
Hooker, having seen that the motorcycle was placed on its rack, supplied the match, and Rackliff fired up, the light seeming to shine through his thin, cupped hands as he protected the blaze from the light draught that came in through the open door. He looked tired, and the first whiff or two set him coughing again.
By this time Springer had recovered, and he ventured to ask:
"What's this Rackliff tells me about the gug-game going nine innings? It began to rain in the fifth and, wishing to get home as soon as I could, I ducked when that was over. I didn't have an idea——"