“Well, it was the newsboy on the train handed me the story. I wouldn’t like to say he was giving me straight goods, for he was a mean looking little guy. You see, those Maple Leafs beat us, something like 14 to 6 it was, and some of our crowd were kind of sore. Going back on the train they were talking over the game and this newsboy was hanging around. Pretty soon he came over to where I was sitting and got to talking. Seemed he lived in New London, or else he hung over there. Anyway, he knew some of the players, and he got to telling about them. ‘That fellow Smith,’ he said—that wasn’t the name, but he was talking about the pitcher—‘gets thirty for every game.’ ‘Thirty what?’ I asked, not getting him. ‘Thirty dollars,’ said he. ‘No wonder we couldn’t hit him then,’ I said. ‘And how about the catcher?’ ‘Oh, he don’t get paid,’ said the boy. ‘They don’t any of the others get paid except that Ralston guy. They give him twenty-five. He don’t play regular with them, though.’ I let him talk, not more than half believing him. Of course, I’d heard of fellows taking money for playing on teams supposed to be strictly amateur, but it’s always on the quiet and you don’t know if it’s so. Afterwards I told Ted McCluer what I’d heard and Ted said he guessed it was straight goods; that he’d heard that that pitcher wasn’t playing for his health.”
Slim frowned and shook his head. “I guess you are mistaken, Johnny,” he said. “Renneker’s rather a swell, as I understand it, and it isn’t likely he’d be running around the country playing ball for a trifling little old twenty-five dollars. Guess you’re barking up the wrong tree, son.”
“I’m not barking at all,” replied Johnny, untroubled. “Only when I had a close look at this Renneker fellow yesterday he was so much like Ralston that I got to thinking.”
“Well, I’d quit,” advised Slim with some emphasis. “And I’d be mighty careful not to tell that yarn to any one else. You know how long Renneker would last if it got around.”
Johnny nodded. “That’s a fact,” he agreed.
Leonard looked puzzled. “But if he isn’t the fellow McGrath took him for, how could it matter any?”
“You aren’t Julius Cæsar,” answered Slim, “but you might have a hard time proving it.”
“Get out! Cæsar’s dead!”
“So are you—from the neck up,” retorted Slim. “Come on home before you get any worse.”