"Whatever happens to-morrow, Al," said Larry, as they broke up their sitting for the night. "Put it down that I said that we were to win the second game in this championship series."
"And if we lose, you will charge it to some adverse fate, won't you, Larry?"
"In the bright lexicon—you know the rest, Al."
By a singular coincidence, at that very hour, Miss Alice Howell, writing to her father the glad news, added a postscript thus: "You will think me overconfident, but I am sure the Catalpas will win the championship."
HOW THE GOOD NEWS CAME.
Catalpa was wide awake, next day, although the weather was hotter than ever and the little breeze that drew in from the prairie was laden with heat. The unexpected result of yesterday's game had set everybody to speculating on the issue of this day's contest. Some scandal was created by the appearance of Hank Jackson on the street with a roll of bills, offering to make bets on the game. It had never been the custom of anybody in Catalpa to wager anything on a base ball game, and there was some frowning now on the part of conservative and upright people; and those who were not specially conservative, but who disapproved of gaming, did not hesitate to reprove Hank in terms more forcible than elegant. Hank had spent some days in Bloomington, where he had frequented pool rooms and had acquired a taste for betting, and his brief experience was regarded by the younger portion of Catalpa with much awe and interest. He was followed about by the smaller boys of the town who listened while he bantered some of his cronies into making bets.