Part 5 (1/2)
Joe flushed a little and Jim laughed.
”Can you blame him?” he asked.
”Not a bit,” answered Clara. ”Mabel's a darling and I'm crazy to get hold of her. After Joe, though, of course,” she added.
Joe threw his napkin at her but missed.
”Sixty-five thousand dollars for a baseball player who can't throw any straighter than that,” she mocked. ”It's a lucky thing for the new league that you didn't take their money.”
”Maybe I had better take their money after all!” cried Joe tantalizingly.
At these words Clara threw up her hands in mock horror.
”You just dare, Joe Matson, and I'll disown you!”
”Ah-ha! And now I'm disowned and cast out of my home!” exclaimed the young baseball player tragically. ”Woe is me!”
”I don't believe any decent player would ever have anything to say to you, Joe, if you did such a mean thing as that,” went on Clara seriously. And at this Joe nodded affirmatively.
An hour later, all three, chatting merrily, were on their way to the train. But their progress was slow, for at almost every turn they were stopped by friends who wanted to shake hands with Joe and congratulate him on his presence of mind the night before.
”One of the penalties of having a famous brother,” sighed Clara, when this had happened for the twentieth time.
”You little hypocrite,” laughed Jim. ”You know that you're just bursting with pride. You're tickled to death to be walking alongside of him. Stop your sighing. Follow my example. I'm tickled to death to be walking alongside of you and you don't hear _me_ sighing. I feel more like singing.”
”For goodness' sake, don't,” retorted Clara in mock alarm. ”Oh, dear, here's another one!”
”Were you addressing me when you said 'dear'?” asked Jim politely.
Clara flashed him an indignant glance, just as Professor Enoch Crabbe, of the Riverside Academy, stepped up and greeted Joe. He was earnest in his congratulations, but his manner was so stilted that they looked at each other with an amused smile, as he stalked pompously away.
”I wonder if he believes now that I can throw a curve,” laughed Joe.
”He ought to ask some of the Red Sox who whiffed away at them in the World Series,” said Jim with a grin. ”They didn't have any doubt about it.”
”Professor Crabbe had very serious doubts,” explained Joe. ”In fact, he said it was impossible. Against all the laws of motion and all that sort of thing. I had to rig up a couple of bamboo rods in a line, and get d.i.c.k Talbot, a friend of mine in the moving-picture business, to take a picture of the ball as it curved around the rods, before I could prove my point.”
”Did it convince him?” queried Jim.
”It stumped him, anyway,” replied Joe. ”But sometimes I have a sneaking notion that he thinks yet that d.i.c.k and I played some kind of a bunco game on him by doctoring the film.”
”Well, I hope that n.o.body else stops us,” remarked Clara. ”It seems to me that almost everybody in Riverside is on the street this afternoon.”
”It wouldn't be such an awful mob at that,” replied Jim. ”But it's a safe bet that one man at least won't stop Joe to shake hands with him.”
”Who is that?” asked Clara.
”The fellow who yelled 'Fire' in the hall last night,” answered Jim with a grin.