_"Kohinoor" Meets Betty_
The train was speeding along through the upper reaches of a beautiful
valley when McCarthy awoke. As he splashed and scraped his face in the
washroom he found himself torn between desire to hasten the
introduction which Kennedy had promised and to avoid meeting the girl.
He glanced down at his worn garments, wondering whether or not the girl
had observed them. He went forward to the dining car with sudden
determination to avoid the introduction. The dining car was crowded,
and the table at which Swanson was eating was filled. McCarthy
stopped, looked around for a vacant seat. There seemed to be only
one--and at that table Miss Betty Tabor was breakfasting with Manager
Clancy and his wife.
"Good morning," said the girl, smiling brightly. "There is a seat
here. My father had to hurry away. Mr. Clancy will introduce us."
Clancy suspended his operations with his ham and eggs long enough to
say:
"Miss Taber, Mr. McCarthy. Kohinoor, this is the old lady."
"I heard Mr. McCarthy sing last night," said the girl, acknowledging
the informal presentation. "He sings well."
"So I should guess," remarked Clancy dryly. "Swanson has been
bellowing his praise of it until everyone on the train thinks we have
grabbed a grand opera star who can hit 400."
McCarthy found himself talking with Miss Taber and Mrs. Clancy and
laughing at the quaint half brogue of the manager's buxom wife as if
they had known each other all their lives. Clancy himself had little
to say. The conversation had drifted to discussion of the country
through which the train was running and McCarthy suddenly ceased
talking.
"I always have loved this part of the valley," said Miss Taber. "When
I was a little girl father brought me on a trip and I remember then
picking out a spot on the hills across the river where, some day, I
wanted to live. I never pass it without feeling the old desire. Have
you been through this country before?"
The question was entirely natural, but McCarthy reddened as he admitted
it was his first trip.
"And what part of the world do you come from?" asked Mrs. Clancy.
"I'm from the West," he responded. "Probably that is why I admire this
green country so much."
"What is your home town?" persisted Mrs. Clancy.
Miss Taber, scenting an embarrassing situation, strove to change the
subject, but Mrs. Clancy refused to be put off.
"Why is it you are ashamed of your home and play under another name,
boy?" she demanded.
"Why do you think my name isn't McCarthy?" he parried.
"The McCarthys aren't a red-headed race," she said, her brogue
broadening. "Ye have Irish in ye, but ye're not Irish. Is baseball
such a disgraceful business ye are ashamed to use your name?"
"Of course not, Mrs. Clancy," he responded indignantly. "It is a good
enough business--but--but--Oh, I can't explain."
"This mystery business is a big drawing card," remarked Manager Clancy,
endeavoring to ease the situation. "They flock to see him because each
one can make up his own story. Let him alone, mother. Don't spoil the
gate receipts."
"Let him alone, is it?" she asked, turning upon her husband. "'Tis for
his own sake I'm speaking. They'll be saying you've done something bad
and wicked and are afraid to use your own name."
"What isn't true cannot hurt anyone," he replied quickly. "I have not
committed any crimes."
"Mother is a good deal right about it," remarked Clancy quietly. "A
baseball player is a public person. The fans are likely to say
anything about a player, and the less they know the more they will
invent."
"I believe Mother Clancy is right," said Miss Taber, seeing that her
effort to turn the conversation had failed.
"But there really isn't anything to tell--anything any one would be
interested in. It's a private matter," protested McCarthy.
"Listen, boy," said the manager's wife. "I've been with the boys these
many years. They are all my boys, even the bad ones, and I don't want
any of them talked about."
"There is nothing to talk about," he contended, irritated by the
persistency of the manager's wife.
"They're already saying things," she responded, leaning forward.
"They're a saying that you've done something crooked--that you've
thrown ball games----"
"Oh," ejaculated Miss Taber. "They wouldn't dare!"
"I'd like to have someone say that to me," McCarthy said, flushing with
anger.
"Hold on, mother," interrupted Clancy. "I'm managing this team----Let
up on him. Where do you hear that kind of talk?"
"I heard it in the stands," she argued earnestly. "They were saying
you knew all about it. If you deny it they'll tell another story and
if you keep quiet they'll think its a confession. Tell them what you
are and where you came from, boy."
Her voice was pleading and her interest in his welfare was too real not
to affect him.
"I'm sorry, Mother Clancy," he said gratefully, unconsciously adopting
the term he had heard Betty Tabor use. "There is nothing I can tell
them--or anyone--now."
"It's sorry I am, Jimmy," she responded sadly. "If it's anything ye
can tell me come to me."
"I see I have another adopted son," remarked Clancy teasingly as he
winked at Miss Tabor. "Ellen mothers them all, as soon as she learns
their first names--even the Swede."
"'Tis proud I'd be to have a son like Sven," she said, defendingly.
The breakfast ended rather quietly and McCarthy returned to his seat in
the players' car dispirited. In his heart he knew that Mrs. Clancy had
spoken the truth. He knew, too, that Betty Tabor held the same opinion
and, somehow, her opinion of him counted more than that of all the
others.
"If I only could explain," he kept thinking. "They have no right to
ask," he argued with himself. "Why do they suspect a man just because
he refuses to tell them all his private affairs?"
McCarthy was settling himself to resume reading when Adonis Williams
came down the aisle and sat down in the other half of the seat.
Williams looked at him patronizingly for an instant, and in a rather
sneering tone said:
"Just a friendly little tip, young fellow. Keep off my preserves and
you'll get along better with this club."
"I don't quite understand you," replied McCarthy, his eyes narrowing
with the anger aroused by the air of superiority assumed by the pitcher.
"I was watching you during breakfast," said Williams. "Don't get it
into your head that because you happened to play a couple of good games
of ball you can run this club and do as you please."
"Hold on a minute," retorted McCarthy, flushing with anger. "If you
have any grievance against me say so. Don't beat around the bush. I
don't know what you are talking about."
"I wanted to tip you off to keep away from the young woman you ate
breakfast with."
McCarthy's eyes flashed angrily, and he started to rise, but controlled
himself with an effort.
"Only muckers discuss such things," he said, coldly.
"Well, we're going to discuss it," retorted Williams, who rapidly was
working himself into a rage. "That young lady is going to be my wife,
and I don't care to have her associating with every hobo ball player
that joins the team."
McCarthy clenched his fists and started to his feet, but gritted his
teeth and kept control of his temper. "You're to be congratulated--if
it is true," he said slowly, his tone an insult. "Men cannot fight
over a woman and not have her name dragged into it. Drop that part of
it and to-night I'll insult you and give you a chance to fight."
"Any time you please," replied Williams, rather taken aback. "I think
you're yellow and won't dare fight."
He swaggered down the aisle, leaving McCarthy angry, helpless and
raging. He was boiling with inward anger when Swanson slid down into
the seat with him as the train entered the suburbs of the Pilgrim City.
"Smatter, Bo?" asked Swanson, quickly observing that something was
wrong. "I saw Williams talking with you. Has he been trying to bluff
you? Don't mind him. He has been as sore as a Charley horse ever
since you joined the team, and he won't overlook a chance to start
trouble."
"He has started it all right," replied McCarthy, savagely. "We're
going to fight to-night and I'll"----
"Steady, Bo, steady," warned Swanson, dropping his voice. "That's his
game, is it? He won't fight any one. He heard Clancy warn you not to
fight and he is trying to get you in bad. I know his way."
"I told him I'd fight," responded McCarthy, worriedly. "Now I'll have
to. I don't know anything I'd enjoy better."
"I'd like to second you and make you do it," responded the giant. "But
it would be playing into his hands if you punched him. Leave him to
me. I'll fix his clock."
Swanson's methods were all his own. The repairing of Williams's
timepiece took place in the big auto 'bus that carried the players from
the train to their hotel. Swanson, wise with long experience in such
matters, secured a seat across the 'bus from Williams, and when the
vehicle rolled onto smoother streets he addressed the pitcher.
"Hey, Adonis," he said in tones Manager Clancy could not fail to hear,
"trying to take out your grouch on Kohinoor, eh? You lay off him or
count me in on anything that comes off."
"That sneak been tattling and crying for help, eh?" sneered Williams.
"I wasn't going to hurt him."
"You're right, you're not," retorted Swanson. "He didn't tell me. I
saw you trying to start something with him, and I've seen you do it to
too many other kids not to know what you were up to."
"Who's talking fight?" demanded Clancy sharply, turning to scan the
players until his eyes rested upon Williams's flushed and angry face.
"Nobody is going to fight," said Swanson easily. "Adonis has been
trying to bully Kohinoor and stir him up. I guess he thought he could
put over his bluff because you told Kohinoor not to fight."
"Adonis, you cut that stuff out or I'll take a hand in it myself," said
Clancy, whose ability and willingness to fight had earned him a
reputation during his playing days. "You've had a grouch for a week or
more. As for you, Kohinoor, don't think you can fight your way through
this league. The first thing you have to do is to learn to stand
punishment and keep your temper."
"No fresh prison pup can swell up and try to cut into my affairs,"
muttered Williams, sullen under the rebuke.
McCarthy sprang up to avenge the fresh insult, but before he could act
or speak he was forestalled.
"Oh," said Clancy sharply. "So you're the fellow who has been making
that kind of talk? I've been trying to find out where it came from.
One more bit of that kind of conversation will cost you a bunch of
salary."
"I've heard it everywhere," muttered Williams, taken aback by the
sudden defense of the recruit by the manager.
"Well, don't hear any more of it," snapped Clancy, and McCarthy,
feeling he had emerged with the honors, discretely maintained silence.
"What started Adonis after you this morning?" asked Swanson, as he
hurled garments around the room and wrought disaster to the order of
his trunk as he hunted pajamas.
"Guess he was just trying to start something," responded McCarthy,
still reading.
"Girl?" inquired Swanson.
"What makes you think that?"
"He was mad when he saw you at breakfast with Betty. He's jealous of
everyone who talks to her."
"She's a dandy girl," said McCarthy, generously. "I don't much blame a
fellow for being jealous when he is engaged to a girl like that."
"Engaged to Betty Tabor? That stiff?" ejaculated Swanson. "Say, did
he spring a line of talk like that on you? Why, he has been crazy
about her for three years, but she knows what he is, and she won't talk
to him any more than to be polite."
"I thought it was odd," commented McCarthy, his heart becoming
strangely lighter.
"Don't make any mistake, though," added Swanson earnestly, as he turned
out the lights. "You've stirred up a bad enemy. He won't fight you
openly; but keep an eye on him."
Swanson's warning fell upon deaf ears. McCarthy's attack of blues was
cured, and he fell asleep to the music of street car wheels that seemed
to say: "She isn't engaged, she isn't engaged," as they rolled past the
hotel.