CHAPTER IVREGGIE TURNS UP
“Reggie!” came from Joe and Jim in chorus as they made a rush for the visitor.
The newcomer smiled affably as Joe and Jim grasped his hands, slapped him on the back and drew him boisterously into the room, where they plumped him into a chair.
“My word!” he ejaculated, in an accent that he tried to make as English as possible. “Might almost suppose you fellahs were glad to see me, eh what?”
“You’re as welcome as the flowers in spring, Reggie, old boy,” declared Joe. “What good wind blew you down this way?”
“Guv’nor had a bit of business that needed attendin’ to in New Orleans,” explained Reggie. “Lot o’ tiresome blighters I had to see, dontcha know, an’ when I got through I felt no end ragged an’ thought I’d freshen up by takin’ a run down here an’ see what my bally brother-in-law an’ the Giants were doin’.”
He carefully crossed his legs so as to interfere as little as possible with the knife-edged creases in his trousers, settled back in his chair and beamed on them.
Reggie Varley was Mabel’s brother and consequently Joe’s brother-in-law. Their first meeting had not been propitious, but when Joe learned that Reggie was Mabel’s brother, he was so deeply in love with that young lady that he was ready to pardon and forget the shortcomings of any of her relations. So he tolerated Reggie at first for Mabel’s sake and later on was surprised to find that he had developed a real liking for Reggie on his own account.
For when he once got below the surface he found that Reggie was a genuinely good fellow, despite his little foibles and affectations. His chief defect, and after all not a very serious one, was his love of clothes. He was always dressed, as he was now, in the very extreme of fashion, fawn-colored gloves, creamy spats, cut-in coat and costly tie, the whole finished off with a cane and a monocle. He was inordinately fond of anything English, and cultivated an accent that he thought would pass current in London and stamp him as one to the manner born.
But beneath these superficial oddities, that often provoked a smile from Joe and Jim, he was kindly, genial, honorable and clear-headed in businessaffairs. He was devotedly attached to his sister and his brother-in-law. Then, too, he was an ardent baseball fan, and that in Joe’s eyes was sufficient to cover his trifling shortcomings. He and Joe got on famously together, and Reggie’s pride and delight in Joe’s prowess on the diamond were only second to those of Mabel herself.
But now a look of apprehension came into Reggie’s eyes as he noticed Joe’s bandaged arm.
“What’s the matter with the old wing?” he asked. “Nothing serious, I hope, eh, what?”
“I hope not,” replied Joe, and then in response to Reggie’s eager questioning told him the story of the afternoon.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Reggie, with instant sympathy. “Too bloomin’ bad, old topper. Mabel will go off her head when she hears of it.”
“I’ve already sent her a night letter telling her all about it,” replied Joe. “And mind, Reggie, if you see the dear girl or write to her, you want to make light of the whole affair. Ten to one it will be all right in a day or two.”
“I’ll keep mum,” promised Reggie. “My word! it’s too bad that you should come a cropper at the very beginnin’ of the season. Guess it’s worried McRae no end, what?”
“He’s as glum as an undertaker,” put in Jim. “And no wonder, for if anything happens to hisstar twirler it will make it mighty hard sledding for the Giants.”
“By the way, boys,” said Reggie, “speakin’ of the Giants—I noticed something mighty queer while I was in New Orleans. The bettin’ was heavily against the Giants that they don’t cop again this season.”
“I don’t see why,” remarked Joe. “We’re stronger this year than we were last. We’ve got rid of some of the dead wood and we’ve got a lot of new men that look like the real thing.”
“That’s what I think,” replied Reggie. “And that’s what made the bettin’ look bally odd to me. Looked as though the bookies had something up their sleeves.”
“They may be plotting something that they think will put us out of the race,” surmised Joe. “It’s been tried more than once, but they didn’t put it across. We’ve downed the crooks before, and I guess we can do it again. But let’s talk of something pleasanter. How long are you going to stay with us, Reggie?”
“Oh, a couple of days or so,” replied Reggie. “I’m hungry to see a little baseball, and I thought I’d hang around a little and see how the team sized up. And I was especially keen to see you swing the old soup bone once more. But I suppose this nasty accident puts that out of the question.”
They talked a little longer and then Reggiesaid he must leave them for his own room, which was on the same floor of the hotel.
“Guess I’ll let you woo the balmy,” he said, as he rose and smoothed down his trousers. “Hope you’ll feel rippin’ in the mornin’. ’By.”
The pain of his burns kept Joe restless a good part of the night, and it was nearly morning before he fell into a heavy sleep from which Jim refused to rouse him, so that it was nearly nine o’clock before he opened his eyes.
He wondered drowsily why he woke with such a feeling of oppression instead of the usual light-heartedness with which he welcomed the day. Then he remembered.
His arm! That arm which meant so much to him!
He raised it, flexed it.
A thrill of delight ran through him as he realized that he did this without pain. The soreness of the night before had gone. Apart from a little tenderness, it felt almost as good as ever.
He sprang from his bed with a whoop, bathed, shaved, dressed, and went down the stairs to the dining room three steps at a time with a light in his eyes and a whistle on his lips.
McRae and Robbie were waiting for him with two professional looking men, and the gloom on their faces lightened as they noted his joyous mien.
“How are you feeling, Joe?” asked McRae eagerly.
“Fine as silk,” laughed Joe. “The old wing feels as though I could go in and pitch a no-hit game.”
“Glory hallelujah!” cried McRae.
“Ye can’t keep a good man down,” exulted Robbie, his red face glowing with delight.
“Perhaps there was no need of our coming after all,” remarked one of the strangers, with a smile.
“That reminds me,” said McRae. “Joe, these are two of the finest specialists in this part of the country, Doctors Wilson and Koerner. We telegraphed to them last night, urging them to come by the first train, for I couldn’t take any chances on the local talent, good as that young man seemed to be, when it came to dealing with that arm of yours. What these gentlemen don’t know isn’t worth knowing, and they’re going to examine you right away.”
“Let Mr. Matson have his breakfast first,” said Doctor Wilson, with a genial smile. “Then we’ll put his arm through the third degree.”
“Sounds rather ominous,” remarked Joe, “but I’m betting that you’ll give me a clean bill of health.”
He ate heartily to make up for his abstention of the night before, and then went with thespecialists and the local doctor to his room, accompanied by Jim, Reggie, McRae and Robbie, all on edge to hear the doctors’ verdict.
The examination of the specialists was thorough, and when they had finished their decision was unanimous.
“Purely superficial,” said Doctor Koerner, as spokesman for both. “Not a thew or sinew or muscle is affected. The arm is absolutely as good as it ever was.”
A shout arose from the group of baseball men that swelled into a perfect yell of delight. They surrounded Joe and pounded and mauled him hilariously until he laughingly protested that they’d make him a cripple anyway if they didn’t let up. The medical men looked on, smiling understandingly, as they packed up their testing instruments and prepared to leave.
Good news travels fast, and the anxious crowd of Giants waiting below stairs for the verdict knew perfectly well the significance of the happy tumult above. They tore upstairs and piled into the room with little ceremony, a laughing, noisy, rapturous bunch, lifted in a moment from the depths of gloom to the heights of joy. They could scarcely have been more elated if they had just won the championship.
It was some time before the hullabaloo subsided and his teammates filed out of the room,filled with new heart and hope, leaving Joe with those who had been there during the examination.
“What the doctors say has lifted a thousand tons from my mind, Joe,” said McRae. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night worrying over it.”
“Same here,” echoed Robbie. “It seemed as if bad luck had handed us a knockout blow right at the beginning of the season. But, glory be, we were only borrowin’ trouble after all. You’re dead sure about it, doctor,” he added, appealing to Doctor Wilson, who was standing next to him.
“As sure as we can be of anything,” replied the doctor. “All Mr. Matson has to do is to let his arm rest for two or three days until the inflammation has wholly disappeared, and he’ll be ready to go in and pitch the game of his life. He had, of course, better let Doctor Templeton dress the arm. But there is nothing seriously wrong.”
“I hope you gentlemen will have a chance to see him pitch,” said McRae. “If you should be in New York or in any city of the circuit when the Giants are playing, just ring me up and I’ll see that you have the best box in the stand.”
They thanked him and, after shaking hands all around, departed, each of the specialists with a handsome check in his pocket that McRae made out on the spot. Had it been ten times as much he would not have cared, so jubilant was he attheir verdict in the case of his star pitcher. Doctor Templeton’s check would come later.
“Now let them bring on their Pirates and their Cubs and all the rest of them,” exulted Robbie, as he and McRae went out on the veranda, which had a much more cheerful aspect for them now than it had had the night before. “An’ say, John, I was just thinking—” He hesitated. “Just thinking——”
“Well, go ahead and spill it, you big stiff,” said McRae jovially, as he settled down in his seat.
“Why, it’s this way,” said Robbie, whose heart was almost as big as his body—which is saying a great deal. “Why not give Joe a little vacation, now that we’re so near the end of the training season? He’s on edge now, as you can see by the way he struck out six men in succession in the last two innings yesterday. And as for his batting eye—well, you saw for yourself how that ball traveled.”
McRae pondered the matter a moment.
“I don’t see why not,” he remarked slowly. “As you say, he’s right at the top of his form just now, and if he overtrains he might go a little stale. Then, too, he’s got to follow the doctor’s directions and not pitch for a few days anyway. And of course we know the kind of care he takes of himself, whether he’s under our eyes or not.I guess you’re right, Robbie. He can have a good rest up in New York and be all ready to jump in when the bell rings.”
“I wasn’t thinking of New York exactly,” said Robbie.
McRae looked at him in astonishment.
“What did you mean then?” he inquired.
“Well, it’s like this, John,” explained Robbie a little sheepishly. “I was standin’ by him when he sent that night letter to his wife last night. He was trying to reassure her—but you know what women are, John. She’ll be scared to death for fear things are worse than he admits they are. And Joe will know she’s scared, and that will make him restless and unhappy. An’ if he’s feeling that way it won’t do the Giants any good. So I just thought if we sent him to Riverside first—let him stop off there for a day or two an’ see Mabel and let her see for herself there’s nothing the matter with him—why, don’t you see? it will be a good thing all around, especially for the Giants.”
McRae burst out laughing.
“Especially for the Giants!” he repeated. “Robbie, you soft-hearted, romantic old rascal, all you’re thinking of is to give those two young folks a chance to see each other.”
Robbie grinned self-consciously.
“Well, s’posin’ I am? Who is there in theworld that deserves it more than that young couple? We know them both. Joe’s one of the finest lads that ever wore shoe leather, and Mabel’s a peach, an’ each one of them thinks that the sun rises and sets in the other. You were young yourself once, John.”
“And I’m not so old now,” rejoined McRae. “Go ahead and get the transportation. We’ll give Joe a little surprise party.”
“That’ll be fine!” exclaimed Robbie, highly gratified. “And say, John, I was just thinkin’——”
“For the love of Pete!” broke in McRae, “that confounded thinking of yours is getting me scared. What do you want me to do now? Give the whole team a lay-off from training?”
“Not at all, not at all!” protested Robbie. “But—but there’s Jim Barclay now, just married, you know, at the end of last season to Joe’s sister, an’ there’s the two little women, Mrs. Joe and Mrs. Jim, both in the one house visitin’ Joe’s folks. I was just thinkin’——”
“Yes, just thinking!” exclaimed McRae with sarcasm, though there was a twinkle in his eye.
“Just thinkin’,” went on Robbie, “of Joe breakin’ in there to surprise them an’ of the kind of heart-warming welcome he’d get from Mrs. Joe, an’ of course from Mrs. Jim, too, seein’ she’s Joe’s sister, an’ then how Mrs. Jim wouldgo peekin’ around Joe to see if he didn’t have Jim concealed about him anywhere and then the look in her pretty eyes when she saw that there was no Jim at all, at all——”
“I suppose all this is for the good of the Giants, too?” remarked McRae, trying to frown but not succeeding very well.
“Sure thing!” maintained Robbie stoutly. “Don’t you remember, John, how Jim was in the doleful dumps last year an’ losin’ more games than he won, an’ how you gave him a few days off to go down to Riverside, an’ how he came back an’ trimmed the other teams as fast as they came on?”
“Robbie, you old stiff, you’ve got me going!” exclaimed McRae. “Stop that blarneying old tongue of yours or you’ll be selling me the Brooklyn Bridge. I suppose we might as well do the thing up brown while we’re about it. And I feel so good about Joe’s arm that I’m willing to do most anything. I’ll make just this one condition. Jim is going to pitch this afternoon and I’m going to watch every move. If I find that he’s right up to the mark and doesn’t need any further training, he can go along with Joe. If I think he needs more training, he stays here and gets it. That’s all.”
“And that’s enough, for I never saw that boy in better shape,” said Robbie jubilantly. “I’ll begoing now and look up the matter of transportation.”
“All right,” agreed McRae. “But don’t buy the tickets till after the game.”
In the meantime Joe had sent off another long telegram to Mabel, with sublime disregard of the cost, telling her what the doctors had said. Then he left an order with the florist for a lot of flowers to be sent to the hospital for Mrs. Bultoza, who, he had assured himself by a telephone call, was getting along favorably and would probably be up and around again in a week at furthest.
That afternoon the Giants played an exhibition game with one of the crack teams of the Southern League. The mere fact that the Giants naturally outclassed such opponents was no proof that they would win the game, for on such occasions the “bushers” usually played their heads off to win while their haughty opponents, knowing that there was nothing particular at stake, were apt to suffer from over-confidence.
Jim had been selected to pitch, and the wily Robbie, taking care that McRae was not within hearing distance, gave him a word of advice.
“Trot out everything you have in stock to-day, Jim,” he urged. “Just try to think that you’re pitchin’ against Axander of the Cubs or Rance of the Brooklyns.”
“I’ll do my best,” replied Jim, somewhat surprised. “But what’s the big idea?”
“There’s a reason,” said Robbie, with a portentous wink that spoke volumes.
Whether or not Robbie’s mysterious hint had anything to do with it, Jim pitched a superb game that ranked well up with that of Joe’s the day before. He held his opponents in the hollow of his hand. His speed and control were as good as anything he was accustomed to show in mid-season, and McRae’s eyes gleamed with gratification as Jim mowed down the batsmen as fast as they came to the plate. He decorated the bushers with a row of goose eggs, not a man getting farther than third.
“Get the tickets, Robbie,” said McRae, as the last man on the opposing team struck out in the ninth inning. “That boy is trained right up to the minute. He’s ready for the gong right now.”
After supper that night McRae told Joe and Jim that he wanted a word with them out on the veranda.
“I think you boys have got all the training you need,” he said. “You’re right on edge now, and I don’t want you to go stale. So I’m going to send you on to New York to rest until the season opens next week.”
The unexpected statement took the boys offtheir feet. They looked at each other thunderstruck.
“We’ve already arranged for your transportation,” went on McRae. “Robbie, hand me over those tickets.”
Robbie pulled them out of his pocket. McRae glanced at them and handed one to each of the boys.
“Here they are,” he said. “It’s a pretty long trip, so I think you’d better take it by easy stages. The first stop-off will be Riverside.”