Kineally wiped a handkerchief across his forehead.
“I’ll be hanged if I know why I’ve stood for your drinking and violation of training rules as long as I have!” he exclaimed. “I reckon it’s because I remember what a likable, clean young duffer you were when I first bought you from that little bush league up-country.”
As he paused, the manager happened to glance past the ball player at a picture standing on the bureau. It was the photograph of a girl, in her early twenties; and the face—the expression of the eyes—the mouth and chin—portrayed that rare combination of beauty of character as well as of feature.
The manager pointed toward the picture.
“To ask a personal question, Rube,” he began; “is she your sister?”
Following the direction of Kineally’s extended finger, Reynolds shook his head.
Kineally’s eyes gleamed his satisfaction. Another avenue of appeal was open!
“Then she must be your sweetheart, for I know that you’re not married,” he stated; and he added earnestly: “I suppose you hope to be married some day?”
Reynolds failed to reply. His liquor-inflamed brain was busy mobilizing the little devils of rage and rebellion. What right had Kineally to catechize him, he angrily pondered. Who gave the manager a license to butt into his private life?
“Why don’t you quit the booze and go straight, for her sake if not your own?” the manager inquired, after an interval. “You can hardly expect a decent girl, like the original of that picture must be, to marry a drunken sot, such as continuing your present pace will make you.”