Octavus Roy Cohen

“ We can't arrest the Norvel bunch, but we can arrest this Mr. Red Williams when he pulls in on the local!”
She clapped her hands, and then her face fell.
“But that's an empty sort of victory, isn't it? It leaves Elmville with an ordinary semi-professional team against the Norvel ringers, doesn't it?”
“No,” I grinned, with the general expression of Balaam's pet steed on my face. “Not exactly. We're going to win!”
“But how?” She stamped her 1-C shoe with an impatient toss of her dainty head. “How?”
“Ssh! Red Williams is going to pitch us to victory!” ”

“ SAY! have you ever lived in a town of twelve thousand population (according to the census; 25,000 according to the local Chamber of Commerce) that had the baseball fever and an almost-pennant-winning team? If you haven't, invade one some day along toward the end of the season when a crucial series is under way—but no! you've got to get the spirit of the thing or it's no go. ”

“ I stopped wondering then why it was that Norvel had consented to postpone the game until the mound wonder had arrived—it was so they couldn't lose!
Pickle! You bet there was and that little pink-cheeked lassie was in it deep. It didn't matter now whether the local came in on time or not. The game was gone! Man alive! it was fierce. That poor little doll robbed of her home and assets. It was just simply up to some big strong man with a B. A. degree to carry her off and marry her. She was too young and tender to look after herself and more mundane affairs. ”

“ A baby-faced blond of the masculine gender lifted my wallet containing diploma, letters of introduction, coin of the realm, and ticket. The conductor allowed the Southern wasn't running on charity or for charity. He stopped the train at this town and invited me to part company with him and his. I accepted the invitation because he had the squarest jaw I ever saw outside the prize ring. I didn't have the heart to tell you right off, because you and this Walters lad seemed right happy to see the man you thought I was. Aw! say—don't cry, not here, anyway. Let's go somewhere more secluded. ”

“ You're going to be kept under cover until the game starts. And when the game starts you're going in there to pitch—and Elmville is going to win! Get that—Elmville is going to win!”
“Any man's li'ble to have an off day,” he whined, with the belligerence gone from his manner.
“Is that so? But to-day isn't going to be an off day for Mr. Red Williams. Not on your life it isn't. He's going to pitch air-tight ball or he's going to spend the night in the Elmville calaboose. ”

“ He was an innocent-looking chap. Hereafter I'm going to steer clear of that kind. If a guy looking like a cross between Teddy Roosevelt and Pancho Villa sits down beside me and curses in seven different languages, I'll trust him with my diamond scarf-pin. But the next pink-cheeked lad with a mama's-boy look in his wide-open blue eyes that asks me if this is the train he's supposed to be on, is liable to be stepped on right hard. If he isn't too big. ”

“ Williams was, he was due for a right warm welcome in that burg—and then this Walters fish excused himself with the remark that he had to trot along and see how much money had been taken in on the advance ticket sale.
“You'll be at the Elm Inn, won't you?” he asked me.
“You're the judge,” I came back at him. “Will I?”
“Yes. It's the only decent hotel in town. I'll be trotting along now.”
“Arthur,” called the girl. “Remember!”
His face kind of clouded up at that.
“Oh! don't worry, Ethel; I won't. But I tell you it was our only chance to pull the club out of the hole.” ”

“ In the first place, in little towns, baseball is a community affair. Financially it is usually a losing proposition, and the public divides the expenses. But root! My Gawd! man, the three thousand fans, some of them from Norvel, that jammed the park that afternoon would have put a Polo Grounds crowd at the end of a Giant winning streak to the blush. ”

“ So I made a getaway and headed for the Elm Inn, with the parting injunction that everybody in Elmville, including Art Walters, must continue to believe that I was Red Williams, the expected pitcher.
“There are two reasons for that,” I said, “the principal one is that if the Norvel team learns that Red hasn't arrived they wouldn't consent to a postponement of the game for love or money. And if the local lads know that I'm not Williams their nerve will go to pieces. They 'll lose the little chance for the game that they still have. Because, Miss Dale, baseball is baseball ”

“ I could see the thing was too much for him.
“Just have a constable out at the ball park,” I said as we were going. “There's liable to be something doing. And say, you might make out an assault and battery warrant in blank. It might come in handy.”
He choked a while.
“Very good. I know I promised not to ask questions, Miss Ethel, but—when you get ready to explain I wish you'd explain to me first.” ”

“ I know that things in stories never happen by accident or coincidence, but this isn't fiction—it's straight goods. Believe me, it took a half a dozen accidents to make a hero out of me, though, of course, until right recently I wouldn't admit it in public print. ”

“ He don't seem to care a three-cent darn what he does with other folks' money, does he?”
“He had the good of the club at heart,” she flashed loyally: that loyalty stuff's a great thing—for the guy on the receiving end. “He would be broken hearted if the team lost.” ”

“ We'll have a fat surplus in hand when we're half through the post-season series with the Norvel White Sox—if they happen to tie up with us, as they ought to do seeing that they're winding up the season with the Canaries and we're idle. ”

“ That's the name of the man behind the deal. Much obliged, Red, for the info. Well, that two hundred isn't going to be earned, see? And it's going to stay in the treasury of the Elmville ball club.”
Did Red Williams agree to our little plan? Can a Zeppelin fall? You betcha. Say, he tried to keep up a bluff front, but if I ever in my life saw a man that was scared stiff, Williams was it.
One time we let him read the arrest warrant, and when he finished I could tell by the ugly mug of him that if he had the power in his arm to pitch a no-hit game he'd do it. ”

“ On the other hand, I knew what Red Williams was thinking. He was thinking that a chance of mixing things with McGill was a heap preferable to spending a few weeks in the Elmville lock-up—and then maybe fifty-two more in the county jail. If I'm any judge of men, Red went into that box prepared to pitch the game of his life.
And that game! My Gawd! Miss Agnes, it was a humdinger. Baseball! Say, this 0-0 stuff ain't base-ball; it's machinery. Baseball is the kind of stuff we pulled that day. At the end of the eighth inning the score was 3-3. ”

“ But they hadn't earned a run off Red; not one. All three had come in as the result of errors on the part of the local lads. There wasn't an inning that somebody didn't get as far as third, and every ball and strike decision of the umps behind the bat was greeted with catcalls from one bunch of rooters or the other. Honest, those arbiters could have had the whole crowd pulled for criminal libel.
Poor Red! I got right sorry for him. Every time one of the men behind him would make a bobble he'd grow a sickly green, and 'tween innings, he'd plead:
“Be reasonable, Heston; be reasonable. ”

“ And they say there are mice and snakes in this town jail.”
“Ugh! I hate snakes.”
“Me, too, Red. But a word to the wise, you know— Also, the wages of sin is the jug.”
Neither side scored in the ninth session, although each set of fans had a half dozen cases of heart-failure. In the tenth the first Norvel man up walked, stole second, and was sacrificed to third. Then Red fanned the next two on six pitched balls. McGill was walking around like a chicken that's been suddenly and completely deprived of his head. ”

“ There's going to be a couple of constables sitting at the two entrances of that ball park this afternoon, Williams, and—well, I guess you've got a pretty good idea that we're not exactly bluffing.”
“But say, where do I get off at? I had a roll comin' to me.”
“You get off when the game's over. And you get the money Elmville promised you—and not another cent.” ”

“ In the first place, no man who has had brains enough to hang around a university for four years and still fool a sour-orange faculty into handing him a sheepskin which designates him a B.A., and other Latin things, likes to admit that he's had his pockets picked by an ordinary dip. ”

“ You see, the two teams were tied at the end of the pennant race, and they've been playing a seven-game series to decide it. Each team has won three games, and now they've pulled in three awful ringers on us, and—we—we—we're beaten. ”

“ And he turned into the Elm Inn and went up-stairs.
I followed and discovered that he'd gone into room 29. I hiked down, bribed a bell-hop with a two-dollar note to give me the key to 27, which was next door, and once in there I did some transom work. And I saw a hard-faced stranger with a checker-board suit count out so many hundred-dollar notes into little Arty's palm that I nearly had heart failure.
“I'm taking out three hundred commission,” snarled the fat party.
“You said a hundred and fifty,” protested Art.
“I'll make that four hundred,” sizzled the stout guy.. ”

“ Art Walters had charge of all the arrangements. We'll pay you after the game. You see, we didn't want them to know we were ringing in a class A pitcher on them so we decided we'd use the name Williams. Oh! don't look at me that way; it's fair enough. They've rung in four high-class players under assumed names, one of them a corking good pitcher, and we have to fight fire with fire, you know. If Elmville loses this afternoon I'm ruined! ”