Batting to Win Part 6

"Everything," explained Phil. "You ask a pretty girl--and by the way, Sid, I congratulate you on your choice, for she is decidedly fine looking--but, as I say, you ask a pretty girl to go to some doings, and when you find you can't go, which is all right, of course, for that often happens, why then, I say, you coolly tell her you have arranged for her escort. You don't give her a chance to have a word to say in the matter. Why, man alive, it's just as if you were her guardian, or grandfather, or something like that. A girl likes to have a voice in these matters, you know. My, my, Sid! but you have put your foot in it.

You should have gently, very gently, suggested that Tom here would be glad to take her. Instead, you act as though she had to accept your choice. Oh, you doggoned old misogynist, I'm afraid you're hopeless!"

"Do you suppose she'll be mad?" asked Sid falteringly.

"Mad? She'll never speak to you again," declared Tom, with a carefully-guarded wink at Phil.

"Well, I can't help it," spoke Sid mournfully. "I've just got to go away, that's all," and he hastened on in advance of his companions.

"Don't stay out too late, and get caught by Proc. Zane again," cautioned Phil, but Sid did not answer.

Tom and Phil lingered in the gymnasium, whither they went for a shower bath, and when they reached their room, to put on clothes other than sporting ones for supper, Sid was not in the apartment. There was evidence that he had come in, hastily dressed, and had gone out again.

"He's off," remarked Tom.

"Yes, and it's mighty queer business," remarked Phil. "But come on, we'll get an early grub, tog up, and go get the girls."

"What about Miss Harrison?"

"Hanged if I know," answered Tom. "I'd be glad to take her, of course, but I'm not going to mix up in Sid's affairs."

"No, of course not. Well, come on."

In spite of hearty appet.i.tes Tom and Phil did not linger long at the table, and they were soon back in their room, where they began to lay out their dress suits, and to debate over which ties they should wear.

Tom had managed to borrow a dress s.h.i.+rt, and so did not have to buy one.

"I say, Phil," remarked the pitcher, as he almost strangled himself getting a tight fifteen collar to fit on the same size s.h.i.+rt, "doesn't it strike you as queer about Sid--I mean his chasing off this way so suddenly?"

"It sure does. This is the second time, and each time he scoots off when he's had a note from some one."

"Remember when he came back last night, smelling so strong of tobacco?"

"Sure; yet he doesn't smoke."

"No, and that's the funny part of it. Then there's the fact of him having no money to-day, though he had a roll yesterday."

There was silence in the small apartment, while the clock ticked on.

Tom, somewhat exhausted by his struggle with his collar, sank down on the ancient sofa, a cloud of dust, like incense, arising around him.

"Caesar's legions! My clothes will be a sight!" he cried, jumping up, and searching frantically for a whisk broom.

"Easy!" cried Phil, "I just had my tie in the right shape, and you've knocked it all squee-gee!" for Tom in his excitement had collided with his chum.

They managed to get dressed after a while--rather a long while.

"Come on," said Tom, as he took a final look at himself in the gla.s.s, for though he was not too much devoted to dress or his own good looks, much adornment of their persons must be excused on the part of the talented pitcher and his chum, on the score of the pretty girls with whom they were to spend the evening.

"I'm ready," announced Phil. "Shall we leave a light for Sid?"

"I don't know. No telling when he'll be in. Do you know, Phil, it seems rotten mean to mention it, and I only do it to see if you have the same idea I have, but I shouldn't be surprised if old Sid was gambling."

"Gambling!"

"Yes. Look how he's sneaked off these last two nights, not saying where he's going, and acting so funny about it. Then coming in late, all perfumed with tobacco, and getting caught, and not having any money and--and--Oh, well, hang it all! I know it won't go any further, or I shouldn't mention it; but doesn't it look queer?"

Phil did not reply for a moment. He glanced at Tom, as if to fathom his earnestness, and as the two stood there, looking around their common home, marked by the absence of Sid, the fussy little alarm clock seemed to be repeating over and over again the ugly word--"gambler--gambler--gambler."

"Well?" asked Tom softly.

"I hate to say it, but I'm afraid you're right," replied Phil. "Sid, of all chaps, though. It's fierce!" and then the two went out.

Tom and Phil called at the residence of Miss Harrison's relatives for Madge and Ruth. Tom tried, tactfully enough, to get Miss Harrison to come to the theatricals with himself and Ruth, but the blue-eyed girl pleaded a headache (always a lady's privilege), and said she would stay at home. Sid's name was not mentioned. Then the four young people went off, leaving a rather disconsolate damsel behind.

Sid was in bed when Tom and Phil returned, and he did not say anything, or exhibit any signs of being awake, so they did not disturb him, refraining from even talking in whispers of the jolly time they had had.

There was a strong smell of tobacco about Sid's clothes, but his chums said nothing of this.

The next day Sid was moody and disconsolate. He wrote several letters, tearing them up, one after the other, but finally he seemed to hit on one that pleased him, and went out to mail it. Amid the torn sc.r.a.ps about his desk Phil and Tom could not help seeing several which began variously "My dear Miss Harrison," "Dear Miss Harrison," "Dear friend,"

and "Esteemed friend."

"Trying to square himself," remarked Tom.

"He's got it bad--poor old Sid," added Phil. "It will all come out right in the end, I hope."

But it didn't seem to for Sid, since in the course of the next week, when he had written again to Miss Harrison asking her to go with him to a dance, he received in return a polite little note, pleading a previous engagement.

"Well," remarked Tom one afternoon, when he and his crowd of players had thronged out on the diamond, "we're getting into some kind of shape. Get back there, Dutch, while I try a few curves, and then we'll have a practice game."

"And pay particular attention to your batting, fellows," cautioned Coach Leighton. "It isn't improving the way it ought, and I hear that Boxer has some good stick-wielders this season."

"Yes, and they've got some one else on their nine, too," added Bricktop Molloy. "Have ye heard the news, byes?" for sometimes the red-haired shortstop betrayed his genial Irish nature by his brogue.

"No, what is it?" asked Phil.

"Fred Langridge is playing with them."

"What? Langridge, the bully who used to be here?" cried one student.

"That same," retorted Bricktop.

"Have they hired him?" inquired Holly Cross.

"No, he's taking some sort of a course at Boxer Hall, I believe."

"A course in concentrated meanness, I guess," suggested Tom, as he thought of the dastardly trick Langridge had tried to play on Phil during the previous term.

"Well, no matter about that," came from the coach. "You boys want to improve your batting--that's all. Your field work is fair, and I haven't anything but praise for our battery."

"Thanks!" chorused Tom and Dutch Housenlager, making mock bows.

"But get busy, fellows," went on the coach. "Oh, by the way, captain, what about a manager?"