“It’s not my funeral,” said Greenwood, with a shrug. “Let the manager worry.”
Coolidge, however, seemed impressed. “I don’t know about that, B-B-Bob,” he said earnestly. “We’d ought to get th-th-things as cheap as p-p-p-possible.”
“You ought, but you don’t,” jeered Jimmy. “You pay any price you’re asked, and then go broke before the end of the season and have to dig into the old Ath. Com. stocking. Say, why don’t you give Emerson a chance this year? Let him bid on the stuff. Might as well hand the profit to one of our own crowd as send it on to some guy you don’t know in New York. That applies to you, too, Cal.”
Cal pursed his lips. “Why, we usually buy a goodish lot, Jimmy; new uniforms all through, bats, balls, a raft of stuff; I’m afraid Emerson couldn’t handle our business.”
“Why couldn’t he?” demanded Jimmy. “Of course he could, you chump! Besides, the uniforms would fit a blamed sight better than they did last year if he took the fellows’ measurements. This thing of sending the size of your waist and the number collar you wear and expecting to get a decently fitting suit gets my goat! And as for your bats and all the other lumber you have to have to play your absurd game, why, Emerson could sell you those better and cheaper than the New York folks, I’ll bet. Besides, you could see what you were getting, which is something you don’t do now.”
“Well, I’m not throwing off on Emerson,” replied Cal, throwing a kindly glance toward that youth, “but, unless I’m mistaken, Jimmy, they tried getting their outfits here in town several years ago and it didn’t work. If I were—”
“Course it didn’t work,” interrupted Jimmy scornfully. “They went to Crocker’s. Every fellow knows that Crocker’s stuff is punk. I mean his sporting goods. Maybe he keeps good nails and—”
“I bought a fielder’s glove there last spring,” began Stanley eagerly. But Cal groaned and Jimmy threatened his roommate with the empty candy box.
“I oughtn’t to have introduced the subject,” continued Jimmy sadly. “I might have known Stan would try to tell about his old glove—”