There was a lively scramble in the two boxes as the first foul tip of the season whizzed directly at them. Gamble, who had captained his village nine, had that ball out of the air and was bowing jovially to the applause before Gresham had quite succeeded in squeezing himself down behind the door of the box.
Naturally it was Polly who led the applause; and Constance shocked the precise Gresham by joining in heartily.
She was looking up at Johnny with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks when Gresham came out of his cyclone cellar--and, if he had disliked Gamble before, now he hated him.
It is a strange feature of the American national game that the more perfectly it is played the duller it is. This was a pitchers" battle; and the game droned along, through inning after inning, with seldom more than three men to bat in each half, while the score board presented a most appropriate double procession of naughts. Spectators, warmly praising that smoothly oiled mechanical process of one, two, three and out, and telling each other that this was a great game, nevertheless yawned and dropped their score cards, and put away their pencils, and looked about the grandstand in search of faces they knew.
In such a moment Colonel Bouncer, who had come into this box because of a huge admiration for Polly and an almost extravagant respect for Constance, and who had heartily wished himself out of it during the last two or three innings, now happily discovered a familiar face only a few rows back of him. "By George, Johnny, there"s Courtney now!" he announced.
Gamble looked with keen interest.
"Do you mean that gentleman with the ruddy face and the white beard?"
he inquired.
"That"s the old pirate," a.s.serted the colonel.
"Why, that"s the man you wanted to introduce me to at the race-track in Baltimore Sat.u.r.day."
"Bless my heart, so I did!" he remembered. "I thought it might relieve him to tell his troubles to you. It isn"t too late yet. Come on up and I"ll introduce you--that is, unless you want to watch this game."
"I"m pleased to pa.s.s up this game till somebody makes an error," Johnny willingly decided. "If they"ll hand out a base on b.a.l.l.s and a safe bunt and hit a batter, so as to get three men on bases with two out, and then muft a high fly out against the fence, and boot the ball all over the field while four of the Reds gallop home--I"ll stay and help lynch the umpire; otherwise not. Show me to your friend Courtney." He turned to take courteous leave of the others and his eyes met the friendly glance of Constance.
"Let"s catch Mr. Courtney at the end of the game," he suggested to the colonel; and then, turning directly to Constance, he added with a laugh: "I think I"ll play hooky. I don"t want to break up the party."
"If you think you see an opportunity for that million, the official scorer insists upon saying good-by," she laughed in return, and held out her hand.
Johnny shook the hand with both pleasure and reluctance, and obediently left.
"I"m offering my pet vanity parasol against a sliver of chewing-gum on Johnny," Polly confided to Loring. "I could see it in his eye that Mr.
Courtney will be invited to help him make that million."
"Somebody ought to warn Courtney," Gresham commented sarcastically.
"Why warn him?" demanded Loring. "I"ll guarantee that any proposition Johnny makes him will be legitimate."
"No doubt," agreed Gresham. "A great many sharp practices are considered legitimate nowadays."
"I object, also, to the term "sharp practices"," responded Loring warmly. "I don"t believe there"s a man in New York with a straighter and cleaner record than Gamble"s. Every man with whom he has ever done business, except possibly yourself, speaks highly of him and would trust him to any extent; and he does not owe a dollar in the world."
"Doesn"t he?" snarled Gresham. "There"s an unsatisfied attachment for fifteen thousand dollars resting against him at the Fourth National Bank at this very moment."
Loring"s indignation gave way immediately to grave concern.
"So that"s why Close was trying to get him on the "phone all afternoon!" he mused.
"Mr. Gresham," called Polly sharply, "how do you come to know about this so quickly?"
Gresham cursed himself and the blind hatred which had led him into making this slip; and he was the more uncomfortable because not only Loring and Polly but Constance had turned upon him gravely questioning eyes.
"Such things travel very rapidly in commercial circles," he lamely explained.
"I had no idea that you were a commercial circle," retorted Polly. "I wonder who"s crooked." Gresham laughed shortly. "It isn"t Johnny!" she indignantly a.s.serted. "I know how Johnny"s fifteen thousand was saved from this attachment, but I wouldn"t tell where it is--even here."
Polly and Loring looked at each other understandingly.
"I suppose that was an old Gamble-Collaton account," Loring surmised with another speculative glance at Gresham. "I am quite certain that Johnny knows nothing whatever of this claim--let alone the attachment.
The operations of his big irrigation failure were so extensive that, with the books lost, he can never tell when an additional claim may be filed against him. If suit is made in an obscure court, and Collaton, who hasn"t a visible dollar, answers summons and confesses judgment for the firm, Johnny has no recourse."
"Except to repudiate payment," suggested Gresham with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I wish he would," returned Loring impatiently. "I wish he would let me handle his affairs in my own way."
"He won"t," Polly despaired.
"Tell me, Mr. Loring," interposed Constance, who had been silently thoughtful all this while; "would this unpaid attachment at Mr.
Gamble"s bank interfere with his present success if Mr. Courtney--or any one else whom Mr. Gamble might try to interest--were to hear of it?"
"It might--and very seriously," returned Loring.
The long somnolent game was suddenly awakened by two blissful errors, which gave the audience something to jeer at. A tally slipped home for Boston. A sharp double play redeemed the errors and closed the inning.
The first man up for the Yankees drove a clean two-bagger down the right foul line; the second man laid down his life n.o.bly with a beautiful bunt; the Boston pitcher gave a correct imitation of Orville Wright and presented free rides to the next two Highlanders; big Sweeney stalked to bat--and the congregation prayed, standing. Under cover of all this quivering excitement, and with Gresham more absorbed than ever upon the foul which might yet slay him, Constance turned to Polly with an intent decisiveness which was quite new to her.
"Arrange it so that I may go home in Mr. Loring"s car," she directed.
"Three cheers!" approved Polly, with a spiteful glance at Gresham.
Mr. Courtney, a live-looking elderly gentleman who kept himself more carefully groomed than many a young man, had shaken hands with Mr.
Gamble quite cordially, had studied him through and through and through in about half a second of time, and had finished the hand-shake more cordially than he had begun it.
"The colonel has been saying all sorts of kind things about you,"--he very graciously stated.
"So he has about you," returned Johnny, smiling into Mr. Courtney"s eyes and liking him.
"I suppose so," admitted Mr. Courtney. "The colonel"s always blowing about his friends, so we mustn"t trust each other too far."
"That"s a good way to start anyhow," laughed Johnny. "The colonel"s been telling me you"re so trusting that you stung yourself."
"How"s that?" asked Mr. Courtney, looking at the colonel in perplexity.
"I don"t quite understand."
"On that hotel deal," the colonel affably reminded him, and was unkind enough to laugh.
"You old reprobate!" protested Courtney. "I don"t see why you want to publish my disgrace."
"You deserve it," chuckled the colonel. "It won"t hurt for Johnny to know it though. He"s the shrewdest young man of my acquaintance, and he might be able to figure a way out of your dilemma for you."
"I might even be able to make some money out of it myself," Johnny frankly acknowledged.
"Jump right in and welcome, young man," invited Courtney. "If you can pull me out whole I don"t care how much you make."