CHAPTER IX

PERSONA AU GRATIN

To every town, whether great or ungreat, appertain and do therefore belong certain individualistic beings. In the big town they are more or less lost, perhaps. In the smaller town they are readily to be found and as readily to be recognised. There is, for example, the man who, be the weather what it may and frequently is, never wears underwear, yet continues ever to enjoy health so robust as to constitute him, especially in winter time, a living reproach to all his fleece-lined fellow citizens. There is the man who hangs round somebody's livery stable, being without other visible means of support, and makes a specialty of diagnosing the diseases of the horse and trimming up fox terrier pups, as regards their ears and tails. Among the neighbouring youth, who yield him a fearsome veneration, a belief exists to the effect that he never removes the tails with an edged tool but just takes and bites them off. There is the man who, because his mother or his wife or his sister takes in sewing, has a good deal of spare time on his hands and devotes it to carving with an ordinary pocketknife--he'll show you the knife--a four-foot chain, complete with solid links and practical swivel ornaments, out of a single block of soft pine, often achieving the even more miraculous accomplishment of creating a full-rigged ship inside of a narrow-mouthed bottle.

There is the man who goes about publicly vainglorious of his ownership of the finest gold-embossed shaving mug in the leading barbershop. There is the man--his name is apt to be A. J. Abbott or else August Ackerman--who invariably refers to himself as the first citizen of the place, and then, to make good his joke, shows the stranger where in the city directory he, like Abou ben Adhem--who, since I come to think about it, was similarly gifted in the matter of initials--leads all the rest. There is the town drunkard, the town profligate, the town beau, the town comedian. And finally, but by no means least, there is the man who knows baseball from A, which is Chadwick, to Z, which is Weeghman. These others--the champion whittler, the dog-biter, and the whole list of them--are what you might call perennials, but he is a hardy annual, blossoming forth in the spring when the season opens and His Honour, the Mayor, throws out the first ball, attaining to full-petalled effulgence along toward midsummer, as the fight for the flag narrows, growing fluffy in the pod at the seedtime of the World's Series in October, and through the long winter hibernating beneath a rich mulch of Spalding's guides and sporting annuals.

* * * * *

The thriving city of Anneburg, situate some distance south of Mason and Dixon's Line at the point where the Tobacco Belt and the Cotton Belt, fusing imperceptibly together, mingle the nitrogenous weed and the bolled staple in the same patchwork strip of fertile loam lands, was large enough to enjoy a Carnegie library, a municipal graft scandal, and a reunion of the Confederate Veterans' Association about once in so often, and small enough to have and to hold--and to value--at least one characteristic example of each of the types just enumerated. But especially did it excel in its exclusive possession of J. Henry Birdseye.

This Mr. Birdseye, be it said, was hardly less widely known than a certain former governor of the state, who as the leading citizen of Anneburg took a distinguished part in all civic and communal movements. Yet the man was not wealthy or eloquent; neither was he learned in the law nor gifted with the pen. His gainful pursuit was that of being a commercial traveller. His business of livelihood was to sell Good Old Mother Menifee's Infallible Chill Cure through nine adjacent counties of the midcontinental malaria zone. But his principal profession was the profession of baseball. In his mind G. O. P. stood for Grand Occidental Pastime, and he always thought of it as spelled with capital letters. He knew the national game as a mother knows the colour of her first-born's eyes. He yearned for it in the off-season interim as a drunkard for his bottle. Offhand he could tell you the exact weight of the bat wielded by Ed Delehanty in 1899 when Ed hit 408; or what Big Dan Brouthers' average was in Big Dan's best year; or where Cap. Anson was born and how he first broke into fast company, and all the lesser circumstances connected with that paramount event. His was the signature that headed the subscription list which each February secured for Anneburg a membership franchise in a Class C League, and he the sincerest mourner when the circuit uniformly blew up with a low, penniless thud toward the Fourth of July.

He glanced at the headlines of the various metropolitan papers for which he subscribed; that was because, as a patriotic and public-spirited American, he deemed it to be his duty to keep abreast of war, crimes, markets, politics, and the other live issues of the day; but what he really read was the sporting department, reading it from the vignette of its chief editor, displayed in the upper left-hand corner, to the sweepings of minute diamond dust accumulated in the lower right-hand corner.

In short, J. Henry Birdseye was a fan in all that the word implies. In a grist mill, now, a fan means something which winnows out the chaff from the grain. In the Orient a fan means a plane-surface of coloured paper, bearing a picture of a snow-capped mountain, and having also a bamboo handle, and a tendency to come unravelled round the edges. But when anywhere in these United States you speak of a fan, be you a Harlem cliff-swallow or a Bangtown jay, you mean such a one as J. Henry Birdseye. You know him, I know him, everybody knows him. So much being conceded, we get down to our knitting.

Springtime had come: 'twas early April. The robin, which is a harbinger in the North and a potpie in the South, had winged his way from Gulfport, Mississippi, to Central Park, New York, and, stepping stiffly on his frost-bitten toes, was regretting he had been in such a hurry about it. Palm Beach being through and Newport not yet begun, the idle rich were disconsolately reflecting that for them there was nowhere to go except home. That Anglophobiac of the feathered kingdom, the English snipe, bid a reluctant farewell to the Old Southern angleworms whose hospitality he had enjoyed all winter, and headed for Upper Quebec, intent now on family duties. And one morning Mr. Birdseye picked up the Anneburg _Press Intelligencer_, and read that on their homebound journey from the spring training camp the Moguls, league champions four times hand-running and World's Champions every once in a while, were by special arrangement to stop off for half a day in Anneburg and play an exhibition game with the Anneburg team of the K-A-T League.

Nor was it the second-string outfit of the Moguls that would come. That band of callow and diffident rookies would travel north over another route, its members earning their keep by playing match games as they went. No, Anneburg, favoured among the haunts of men, was to be honoured with the actual presence of the regulars, peerlessly captained by that short and wily premier of all baseball premiers, so young in years yet so old in wisdom, Swifty Megrue; and bearing with him in its train such deathless fixtures of the Temple of Fame as Long Leaf Pinderson, the Greatest Living Pitcher, he who, though barely out of his teens, already had made spitball a cherished household word in every American home; Magnus, that noble Indian, catcher by trade, a red chieftain in his own right; Gigs McGuire, mightiest among keystone bagsmen and worshipped the hemisphere over as the most eminent and at the same time the most cultured umpire-baiter a dazzled planet ever beheld; Flying Jenny Schuster, batsman extraordinary, likewise base-stealer without a peer; Albino Magoon, the Circassian Beauty of the outfield, especially to be loved and revered because a product of the Sunny Southland; Sauer and Krautman, better known as the Dutch Lunch battery; little Lew Hull, who could play any position between sungarden and homeplate; Salmon, a veritable walloping window-blind with the stick; Jordan, who pitched on occasion, employing a gifted southpaw exclusively therefor; Rube Gracey; Streaky Flynn, always there with the old noodle and fast enough on his feet to be sure of a fixed assignment on almost any other team, but carried in this unparalleled aggregation of stars as a utility player; Andrew Jackson Harkness; Canuck LaFarge, and others yet besides. These mastodons among men would flash across the palpitant Anneburg horizon like a troupe of companion comets, would tarry just long enough to mop up the porous soil of Bragg County with the best defensive the K-A-T had to offer, and then at eventide would resume their journey to where, on the vast home grounds, new glories and fresh triumphs awaited them.

No such honour had ever come to Anneburg before; and as Mr. Birdseye, with quickened pulse, read and then reread the delectable tidings, forgetting all else of lesser import which the _Press Intelligencer_ might contain, a splendid inspiration sprang full-grown into his brain, and in that moment he resolved that her, Anneburg's, honour should be his, J. Henry Birdseye's, opportunity. Opportunity, despite a current impression, does not knock once at every man's door. Belief in the proverb to that effect has spelled many a man's undoing. He has besat him indoors awaiting the sound of her knuckles upon the panels when he should have been ranging afield with his eye peeled. As a seasoned travelling man Mr. Birdseye knew opportunity for what she is--a coy bird and hard to find--and knew that to get her you must go gunning for her. But he figured he had the proper ammunition in stock to bring down the quarry this time--the suitable salt to put on her tail. Of that also he felt most certain-sure.

The resolution took definite form and hardened. Details, ways and means, probable contingencies and possible emergencies--all these had been mapped and platted upon the blueprints of the thinker's mind before he laid aside the paper. To but one man--and he only under the pledge of a secrecy almost Masonic in its power to bind--did Mr. Birdseye confide the completed plan of his campaign. That man was a neighbour of the Birdseyes, a Mr. Fluellen, more commonly known among friends as Pink Egg Fluellen. The gentleman did not owe his rather startling titular adornment to any idiosyncrasy of complexion or of physical aspect. He went through life an animate sacrifice to a mother's pride. Because in her veins coursed the blood of two old South Carolina families, the Pinckneys and the Eggners, the misguided woman had seen fit to have the child christened Pinckney Eggner. Under the very lip of the baptismal font the nickname then was born, and through all the days of his fleshy embodiment it walked with him. As a boy, boy-like, he had fought against it; as a man, chastened by the experience of maturity, he had ceased to rebel. Now, as the head of a family, he heard it without flinching.

On his way downtown after breakfast, Mr. Birdseye met Mr. Fluellen coming out of his gate bound in the same direction. As they walked along together Mr. Birdseye told Mr. Fluellen all, first, though, exacting from him a promise which really was in the nature of a solemn oath.

"You see, Pink Egg," amplified Mr. Birdseye when the glittering main fact of his ambition had been revealed, "it'll be like this: The Moguls get in here over the O. & Y. V. at twelve-forty-five that day. Coming from the West, that means they hit Barstow Junction at eleven-twenty and lay over there nine minutes for the northbound connection. Well, I'm making Delhi the day before--seeing my trade there. I drive over to the junction that evening from Delhi--it's only nine miles by buggy--stay all night at the hotel, and when the train with the team gets in next morning, who climbs aboard her? Nobody but just little old me."

"But won't there be a delegation from here waiting at Barstow to meet 'em and ride in with 'em?"

Mr. Birdseye was wise in the lore of local time cards. He shook his head.

"Not a chance, Pinkie, not a chance. The only way to get out to Barstow from here that morning would be to get up at four o'clock and catch the early freight. No, sir, the crowd here won't see the boys until we all come piling off at the union depot at twelve-forty-five. By that time I'll be calling all those Moguls by their first names. Give me an hour; that's all I ask--just an hour on the same train together with 'em. You know me, and from reading in the papers about 'em, you know about what kind of fellows those Moguls are. Say, Pink Egg, can't you just close your eyes and see the look on Nick Cornwall's face when he and all the rest see me stepping down off that train along with Swifty Megrue and old Long Leaf and the Indian, and all the outfit? I owe Nick Cornwall one anyway. You remember how shirty he got with me last year when I went to him and told him if he'd switch Gillam from short to third and put Husk Blynn second in the batting order instead of fifth, that he'd improve the strength of the team forty per cent. If he'd only a-done that, we'd have been in the money sure. But did he do it? He did not. He told me there was only one manager getting paid to run the club, and so far as he knew he was him. Manager? Huh! Look where we finished--or would have finished if the league had lasted out the season. Eight teams, and us in eighth place, fighting hard not to be in ninth."

"Suppose, though, J. Henry, there just happens to be somebody else from Anneburg on the twelve-forty-five?"

Perhaps it was a tiny spark of envy in Mr. Fluellen's heart which inspired him to raise this second doubt against the certainty of his friend's coup.

"I should worry if there is!" said Mr. Birdseye. "Who else is there in this town that can talk their own language with those boys like I can? I'll bet you they're so blamed sick and tired of talking with ignorant, uneducated people that don't know a thing about baseball, they'll jump at a chance to associate with a man that's really on to every angle of the game--inside ball and averages and standings and all that. Human nature is just the same in a twenty-thousand-a-year big leaguer as it is in anybody else, if you know how to go at him. And if I didn't know human nature from the ground up, would I be where I am as a travelling salesman? Answer me that."

"I guess you're right, J. Henry," agreed Mr. Fluellen. "Gee, I wish I could be along with you," he added wistfully.

Mr. Birdseye shook his head in earnest discount of any such vain cravings upon Mr. Fluellen's part. If there had been the remotest prospect of having Mr. Fluellen for a companion to share in this glory, he wouldn't have told anything about it to Mr. Fluellen in the first place.

"Anyhow, I reckon my wife wouldn't hear to it," said Mr. Fluellen hopelessly. "She's funny that way."

"No, it wouldn't do for you to be along either, Pink Egg," said Mr. Birdseye compassionately but with all firmness. "You don't know the real science of baseball the same as I do. They wouldn't care to talk to anybody that was even the least bit off on the fine points. I was just thinking--I'll be able to give 'em some tips about how to size up the situation here--not that they need it particularly."

"J. Henry, you wouldn't tip 'em off to the weak spots in the Anneburg team?" Loyalty to local ideals sharpened Mr. Fluellen's voice with anxiety.

"Certainly not, Pink Egg, certainly not," reassured Mr. Birdseye. "What do you think I am? Not that they need to be told anything. They'll wipe up the ground with our bunch of morning glories anyway--best we can hope for is that we don't get skunked and that the score is kind of low. But I'll certainly put 'em wise to that soft place back of centre field, where the grass is high. That's only true sportsmanship, that's only fair."

"Yes," assented Mr. Fluellen, "I reckon that's no more than fair. Well, as I said before, J. Henry, I certainly wish I was going to be with you."

* * * * *

The great day came and was auspiciously sunshiny from its dawning onward. Contrary to the custom of trains in certain interior sections of our common country, the train upon which so much depended slid into Barstow Junction at eleven-twenty, exactly on time. On the platform of the little box station, awaiting it, stood our Mr. Birdseye, impatiently enduring the company of a combination agent-telegrapher-ticketseller, who wore pink sleeve-garters with rosettes on them and a watch charm carved from a peach kernel to represent a monkey with its tail curved over its back.

Mr. Birdseye was costumed in a fashion befitting the spirit of the hour, as he sensed it. The main item of his attire was a new light-gray business suit, but lightening touches of a semi-sporting character were provided by such further adornments as a white Fedora hat with a wide black band, a soft collar held down trimly with a gold pin fashioned like a little riding-crop, and low tan shoes with elaborated gunwalelike extensions of the soles, showing heavy stitching. The finger tips of a pair of buckskin gloves, protruding from a breast pocket of his coat, suggested two-thirds of a dozen of small but well-ripened plantains. His visible jewelry included dog's-head cuff buttons and a fob strap of plaited leather with a heavy silver harness buckle setting off its pendant end.

Looking the general effect over from time to time during that dragging forenoon, he had each separate time felt himself to be habited in accordance with the best taste and the best judgment, considering the nature of the occasion and the rôle he meant to play. An added fillip to his anticipations was afforded by the consciousness that no rival would divide the coming triumph with him. Anneburg had forty thousand inhabitants, including whites--that is, forty thousand by the United States census reports; seventy-five thousand by patriotic local estimates. By sight or by name Mr. Birdseye knew most of the whites and many of the blacks, browns and yellows. At the hotel no Anneburgian name was registered, saving and excepting his own; in the little knot gathered on the platform no familiar Anneburg shape now disclosed itself. He was alone and all was well.

The locomotive rolled in and gently halted, as though to avoid jostling its precious freightage of talent. Behind it, tailing along up the track, stretched two day coaches and sundry Pullmans. From these last dropped down dark-faced figures, white-clad in short jackets, and they placed boxes below every alternate set of car steps. The train conductor dismounted. Carrying a small handbag, Mr. Birdseye approached and hailed him.

"Hello, Cap," he said, "have a smoke."

"Thanks." The conductor deposited the cigar with tender care in the crown of his uniform cap. "Smoke it later on, if you don't mind. Nice weather."

"Which car are the boys on?" asked Mr. Birdseye.

"Boys--which boys?"

"Why, the boys that are going to play Anneburg, of course."

"Oh, that bunch? Back yonder." He flirted a thumb over his shoulder toward the tail of his vestibuled convoy. If the conductor meant to say more he lost the chance through his own slowness. Already Mr. Birdseye was hurrying up the cindered stretch beyond the platform.

At the portals of the rearmost Pullman but one a porter interposed himself.

"Private sleeper, cap'n," he warned.

"That'll be all right," stated Mr. Birdseye. "That's the one I'm looking for--came out from Anneburg especially to meet the boys and ride in with 'em." He proffered a small cardboard slip and with it a large round coin. "Take the Pullman fare out of that and keep the change."

"A' right, suh, boss--an' much obliged." The porter pouched dollar and ticket with one hand and with the other saluted profoundly. He aided the generous white gentleman to mount the steps.

Within the door of the coach, at the mouth of its narrow end passage, Mr. Birdseye halted to take swift inventory of its interior. It was a sleeper of the pattern familiar to all who travel much and widely; it looked its part and smelled it, giving off the inevitable torrid aromas of warm plush and heat-softened shellac. It contained fifteen or eighteen occupants scattered through its length, some sitting singly, some paired off and, in one group, four together, playing cards--all young or youngish men, all smartly dressed, all live-looking. At first glance Mr. Birdseye told himself he was in the right car. At second glance he told himself he was not so absolutely sure. For one thing, the persons here revealed seemed so quiet, so sedate; there was no skylarking; no quips flying back and forth; no persiflage filtering out of the open windows. Still, for one initiated, it should be an easy task to make sure, and very sure at that.

Almost in arm-reach of him two of the passengers faced each other from opposite seats with a checkerboard upon their knees. The one who had his back to Mr. Birdseye, a tall, light-haired person, kept his head bent in deep study of the problem of the next move. His opponent looked up. Barring the cut and colour of his costume he might have passed, with his smooth, rosy cheek and his round, blue Irish orb, for a Christian Brother. Full well did Mr. Birdseye know that Gigs McGuire, foremost of all second-basemen, had studied for the priesthood before he abandoned the seminary for the stadium. Indeed, he knew all about Gigs McGuire that the leading chroniclers of baseball had ever written for publication. He advanced half a pace, his right arm extended, a greeting forming on his lips.

The ensuing conduct of the blue-eyed man was peculiar, not to say disconcerting. He stared at Mr. Birdseye for the brief part of a brief second. Then he twisted his head over his shoulder, and, without addressing anyone in particular, rapidly uttered the word "Cheese!" thrice in a tone of seeming impatience. And then he picked up a red disk and with it jumped a black one. Mr. Birdseye felt constrained to step along.

Across the aisle diagonally were the four who played at cards. It was to be seen that bridge was the game occupying them. And bridge, properly played, is an absorbing pursuit, requiring concentration and silence. None of the quartet bestowed so much as a sidelong look upon Mr. Birdseye as Mr. Birdseye, slowly advancing toward the middle of the car, passed them by.

Thus progressing, he came close to one who spraddled in solitary comfort over two seats. This one was interred nose-deep in a book.

"Hello," said Mr. Birdseye tentatively, almost timidly, for increasing doubt assailed him.

"'Lo," answered the reader in a chill monosyllable without lifting his face from his book. Mr. Birdseye noted that the book contained verse printed in German, and he regretted having spoken. It wasn't in the nature of things for a ballplayer to be reading German poetry in the original, and he had no time to waste upon any other than a ballplayer.

In that same instant, though, his glance fell on the next two passengers, and his heart gave a glad upward leap in his bosom. Surely the broad man with the swarthy skin and the straight black hair must be the Indian. Just as surely the short, square man alongside, the owner of that heavy jaw and that slightly up-tilted nose, could be none but the Richelieu of managers. Mr. Birdseye almost sprang forward.

"Well, Chief!" he cried genially. "Well, Swifty! I thought I'd find you. How's everything?"

Coldly they both regarded him. It was the short, square man who answered, and the reader behind put down his volume of Heine to listen.

"Everything would be all right if they'd only keep these car doors locked," said the short man, and he didn't speak as a true sportsman should speak--tone, inflection, pronunciation, all were wrong. Enthusiasm was lacking, joviality was woefully missing. He continued, in the manner rather of a civil engineer--an impassive ordinarily civil engineer, say, who was now slightly irritated about something: "I figure you've made a mistake. This gentleman is not a chief--he's my private secretary. And my name does not happen to be Swift, if I heard you right. My name is Dinglefoogle--Omar G. Dinglefoogle, of Swedish descent."

He disengaged his gaze from that of the abashed Birdseye and resumed his conversation with his companion at a point where it had been interrupted:

"Have it your own way, John. Abbey for yours, but Sargent and Whistler for mine--yes, and Remington."

"But where are you going to find anything to beat that thing of Abbey's--The Search for the Holy Grail?" It was the swarthy man taking up the issue. "Every time I go to Boston----"

Moving onward in a small, self-generated fog of bewilderment which travelled with him, Mr. Birdseye heard no more. So moving, he passed in turn a young man who was bedded down in a nest of pamphlets and Government bulletins dealing in the main apparently with topics relating to forestry or else with intensive farming; and a young man who napped with his hat over his eyes; and another young man intently making notes on the back of an envelope; and two young men silently examining the mechanism of a gold watch which plainly was the property of one of the two; until at the far end of the car he came to one more young man who, casting aside a newspaper and straightening to get the kinks out of his back, showed Mr. Birdseye a profiled face of a clear pinkish colour, with a calm, reflective eye set in it under a pale yellow eyebrow and, above, a mop of hair so light as to be almost white. Verily there could be no confusion of identity here. Coincidence was coincidence, but so unique, so distinctive, a physical aspect was not to be duplicated outside of a story book.

"Say, I'd know you anywhere by your pictures," said Mr. Birdseye, and extended the right hand of fellowship.

"That's the main objection to those pictures--they do look a little like me," replied the young man with a smile so grave as to verge upon the melancholy. Half rising, he shook hands with the other. "Have a seat?" Hospitably he indicated the cushioned expanse in front of him and drew in his knees.

Here was proof, added and cumulative. The voice of the pale-haired young man was as it should be, a gently modulated r-slurring voice. Was it not known of all men that Albino Magoon, the Circassian Beauty of the outfield, owned allegiance of birth to the Sunny Southland, Mr. Birdseye's own land? Bond and double bond would they share between them. In a flutter of reviving joy Mr. Birdseye scrooged in and sat.

The young man, having done the courtesies, sat back modestly as though awaiting the newcomer's pleasure in the matter of choosing a topic for conversation. Mr. Birdseye lost no time. He knew the subjects fittest to be discussed.

"Well," he said, "what do you think about Chicago's chances? Think she's going to give New York a run for her white alley this year?"

"I'm sure I don't know, suh." Such was the first sentence of the astonishing rejoinder. "Chicago is growing, awfully fast--faster than any big interior city, I presume, but the latest figures show New York has a greater population now, including suburbs, than London even. It's hardly possible, I reckon, for Chicago to hope to catch up with New York--this year or any other year."

Puzzled, I must admit, but by no means nonplussed, Mr. Birdseye jibed and went about mentally. As the cant phrase goes, he took a new tack.

"Say, listen," he said; "do you know what I think? I think the Federals gave you-all a rotten deal. Yes, sir, a rotten deal all the way through. Naturally down here nearly everybody feels that way about it--naturally the sympathies of nearly everybody in this part of the country would turn that way anyhow. I reckon you'd know that without my telling you how we feel. Of course a good knock-down-and-drag-out fight is all right, but when you sit down and figure out the way the Federals behaved right from the start----"

The other put up an objecting hand.

"I hope you'll excuse me, suh," he said, "but I don't believe in keeping those old sores open. I thought sectionalism was dying out everywhere--I hoped it was, anyway. My father fought the Federals for four years and he died reconciled. I don't know why we younger men shouldn't be. After all, we're all Americans now."

"I wasn't speaking of the Federal Army," explained Mr. Birdseye, desperately upset. "I was speaking of the Federal League."

"Oh, the Federal League!" said the other. "I beg your pardon, suh. Are you--are you interested in baseball?" He put the question wonderingly.

"Am I interested in--well, say, ain't you interested?"

"Me? Oh, no, suh. I make it a rule never to discuss the subject. You see, I'm a divinity student. I reckon you must've mistaken me for somebody else. I was afraid so when you first spoke. I'm mighty sorry."

"Yes, I must've," agreed Mr. Birdseye. He got upon his own feet and stumbled over the young man's feet and ran a hand through the hair on his pestered head. "I guess I must've got in the wrong car."

"That's probably it," said the pale-haired one. His odd-coloured but ingenuous countenance expressed solicitude and sympathy for the stranger's disappointment. Indeed, it wrinkled and twitched almost as though this tender-hearted person meant to shed tears. As if to hide his emotions, he suddenly reached for his discarded newspaper and in its opened pages buried his face to the ears--ears which slowly turned from pink to red. When next he spoke it was from behind the shelter of his newsprint shield, and his voice seemed choked. "Undoubtedly that's it--you got in the wrong car. Well, good-bye, my brother--and God bless and speed you."

At this precise moment, with the train just beginning to pull out from Barstow Junction, with the light-haired man sinking deeper and deeper inside the opened sheets, and with Mr. Birdseye teetering on uncertain legs in the aisle, there came to the latter's ears what he might have heard before had his hearing been attuned for sounds from that quarter. He heard a great rollicking, whooping, vehement outburst coming from the next car back, which was likewise the last car. It had youth in it, that sound did--the spirit of unbridled, exuberant youth at play, and abandon and deviltry and prankishness and carefreedom. Mr. Birdseye faced about. He caught up his handbag and, swift as a courier bearing glad tidings, he sped on winged feet--at least those extensive soles almost approximated wings--through the cramped passage flanking the smoking compartment. Where the two cars clankingly joined beneath a metal flange he came into collision with a train butcher just emerging from the rear sleeper.

Butch's hair was dishevelled and his collar awry. He dangled an emptied fruit basket in one hand and clinked coins together in the palm of the other. On his face was a grin of comic dismay and begrudged admiration.

"Some gang back there--some wild gang!" he murmured and, dodging adeptly past Mr. Birdseye, was gone, heading forward.

The searcher rounded the jog of the compartment reservation, and inside him then his soul was lifted up and exalted. There could be no mistake now. Within the confines of this Pullman romped and rampaged young men and youths to the number of perhaps twenty. There seemed to be more than twenty of them; that, though, was due to the flitting movements of their rambunctious forms. Norfolk-jacketed bodies, legs in modishly short trousers deeply cuffed at the bottoms, tousled heads to which rakish soft hats and plaid travelling caps adhered at angles calculated to upset the theory of the attraction of gravitation, showed here, there, everywhere, in a confused and shifting vista. Snappy suit cases, a big, awkward-looking, cylindrical bag of canvas, leather-faced, and two or three other boxes in which, to judge by their shapes, stringed musical instruments were temporarily entombed, encumbered a seat near by.

All this Mr. Birdseye's kindled eye comprehended in the first quick scrutiny. Also it took in the posture of a long, lean, lanky giant in his early twenties, who stood midway of the coach, balancing himself easily on his legs, for by now the train was picking up speed. One arm of the tall athlete--the left--was laid along his breast, and in its crook it held several small, half-ripened oranges. His right hand would pluck up an orange, the right arm would wind up, and then with marvellous accuracy and incredible velocity the missile would fly, like a tawny-green streak, out of an open window at some convenient target. So fast he worked and so well, it seemed as though a constant stream of citrus was being discharged through that particular window. An orange spattered against a signpost marking the limits of the yard. Two oranges in instantaneous succession struck the rounded belly of a water tank, making twin yellow asterisks where they hit. A fourth, driven as though by a piston, whizzed past the nappy head of a darky pedestrian who had halted to watch the train go by. That darky ducked just in time.

Mr. Birdseye lunged forward to pay tribute to the sharpshooter. Beyond peradventure there could be but one set of muscles on this continent capable of such marksmanship. But another confronted him, barring his way, a stockily built personage with a wide, humorous face, and yet with authority in all its contour and lines.

"Well, see who's here!" he clarioned and literally he embraced Mr. Birdseye, pinning that gentleman's arms to his sides. He bent his head and put his lips close to Mr. Birdseye's flattered ear, the better to be heard above the uproar dinning about them. "What was the name?" he inquired.

"Birdseye--J. Henry Birdseye."

Continuing to maintain a firm grasp upon Mr. Birdseye's coat sleeve the stocky individual swung about and called for attention:

"Gentlemen, one moment--one moment, if you please."

Plainly he had unquestioned dominion over this mad and pranksome crew. His fellows paused in whatever they were doing to give heed unto his words.

"Boys, it gives me joy to introduce to you Colonel Birdshot."

"Birdseye," corrected his prisoner, overcome with gratification, not unmixed with embarrassment.

"I beg your pardon," said the master of ceremonies. Then more loudly again: "I should have said Col. Birdseye Maple."

"Three cheers for the walking bedroom set!" This timely suggestion emanated from a wiry skylarker who had drawn nigh and was endeavouring to find Mr. Birdseye's hand with a view to shaking it.

Three cheers they were, and right heartily given too.

"And to what, may I ask--to what are we indebted for the pleasure of this unexpected but nevertheless happy meeting?" asked the blocky man. One instant he suggested the prime minister; the next, the court jester. And was not that as it should be too? It was, if one might credit what one had read of the king-pin of managers.

"Why--why, I just ran over from Anneburg to meet you and ride in with you--and sort of put you onto the ropes and everything," vouchsafed Mr. Birdseye.

"Well, isn't that splendid--we didn't expect it!" Once more he addressed his attentive fellows:

"Gentlemen, you'll never guess it until I tell you. It is none other than the official reception committee bearing with it the keys of the corporation. I shrewdly suspect the Colonel has the words 'Welcome to Our City' tattooed upon his chest."

"Let's undress him and see."

The idea was advanced by the same wire-drawn youngster who had called for the cheers. He laid hold on Mr. Birdseye's collar, but instantly the happy captive was plucked from his grasp and passed from one to another of the clustering group. They squeezed Mr. Birdseye's fingers with painfully affectionate force; they dealt him cordially violent slaps upon the back. They inquired regarding his own health and the health of his little ones, and in less than no time at all, it seemed to him, he, somewhat jostled and dishevelled, confused but filled with a tingling bliss, had been propelled the length of the aisle and back again, and found himself sitting so he faced the directing genius of this exuberant coterie of athletes. The rest, sensing that their leader desired conference with the newcomer, resumed their diversions, and so in a small eddy of calm on the edge of a typhoon of clamour these two--Birdseye and the great manager--conversed together as man to man.

"And so you ran down to meet us--that was bully," said the blocky man. His mood was now serious, and Mr. Birdseye set himself to reply in the same spirit. "What's the prospects for a crowd over in Anneburg?"

"Couldn't be better," Mr. Birdseye told him. "Everybody in town that can walk, ride or crawl will be out to see you fellows play."

"To see us play--that's good!"

"The Mayor is going to be there, and ex-Governor Featherston--he's about the biggest man we've got in Anneburg--and oh, just everybody."

"Whosoever will, let him come, that's our motto," stated his vis-à-vis; "entertainment for man and beast. You'll be there of course?"

"In a front seat--rooting my head off," promised Mr. Birdseye, forgetting in the supreme joy of this supreme moment that he owed first duty to Anneburg's own puny contenders. "Say, you fellows are just exactly like I thought you'd be--regular hellions. Well, it's the old pep that counts."

"You said it--the old pep is the thing."

"What kind of a trip did you have coming up?"

"Fine--fine from the start."

"And where do you go from Anneburg?"

"Asheville, then Richmond. Anneburg is the smallest town we play."

"Don't think we don't appreciate it, Swifty. Say, the Big Fellow certainly can pitch, can't he?" Mr. Birdseye pointed toward the flinger of oranges who, having exhausted his ammunition, was now half out of a window, contemplating the flitting landscape. "How's his arm going to be this year?"

"Better than ever--better than ever. I guess you know about the no-hit game he pitched last year--the last game he played?"

"Tell me something about that kid I don't know," boasted Mr. Birdseye. "I've followed him from the time he first broke in."

"Then you know he's there with the pipes?"

"The pipes?"

"Sure--the educated larynx, the talented tonsils, the silver-lined throat--in other words, the gift of song."

"Why, I didn't know he sang," owned Mr. Birdseye, a mite puzzled.

"That's it--let a fellow do one thing better than anybody else, and they forget his other accomplishments. Sing? Well, rather! And punish old John J. Mandolin, too, if anybody should ask you."

So saying, the speaker drew forth a bulldog pipe and proceeded to load it from a leather tobacco case.

"I don't have to keep in condition, seeing as I'm merely running things," he explained. "But you bet I make my flock keep in condition--no boozing and mighty little cigarette smoking for them while their little papa's eye is on them."

"I've always heard you were strong for discipline," said Mr. Birdseye, plastering the flattering unction on thickly.

"I have to be, with a rowdy outfit like this one. Look yonder--that's a sample of the way they carry on when the bridle is off."

Three of these temporarily unhaltered colts had captured the car porter. Two held him fast while the third massaged his woolly scalp with hard knuckles. Half a dozen more shouted advice to the operator. The porter broke away and fled, his expression betraying that he hardly knew whether to feel indignant or complimented. Mr. Birdseye saw that the volunteer masseur, now approaching them, had coal-black hair and snapping black eyes, and a skin the colour of polished cherry.

"That's the Chief coming, of course?" opined Mr. Birdseye. His tone was filled with reverence.

"Sh-h, don't let him hear you. If I had a big Indian whatyoumaycallim for a grandfather I'd advertise it, but he's a little touchy on the subject. Great boy though--one of the best."

"Part Pawnee, ain't he?"

"No; Parsee, I think."

Mr. Birdseye was going to ask where that tribe lived, but skylarking broke out in a fresh quarter and he forgot it. They talked averages then, or started to. Mr. Birdseye was made proud to find his companion agreed with him that Tris Speaker undoubtedly had a shade on Joe Jackson, and then was just about to take up the question of Honus Wagner's ability to come back after his last season's slump--a vital issue and one upon which he entertained decided views in the affirmative--when something occurred. Without being able to comprehend exactly how it came about, he discovered himself all of a sudden forming one link in a human chain of which six or eight more were likewise component parts. With arms intertwined and heads bent toward a common centre, they all mingled their lusty voices in snatches of song and glee and roundelay, and he--he perforce joined with them. One moment Merrily They Rolled Along, Rolled Along, Rolled Along--indeed they did; the next, From Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party they were Seeing Nell-l-l-i-e Home. Then a single minstrel advanced the duly credited assertion of parties unnamed that A Nigger Won't Steal, whereupon several others instantly and melodiously responded to the effect that be this as it may, I Caught Three in My Cornfield; One Had a Shovel and One Had a Hoe and if That Ain't Stealing I Don't Know! And so on without cessation for many fleeting, glorious, golden minutes. Once Mr. Birdseye, feeling certain he recognised the blithesome tenor whose wide shoulders his right arm encompassed, broke off his carolling long enough to say:

"Some doings, eh, Flying Jenny?"

Whereat the singer, thus jovially addressed, conferred a wink and a grin upon him and shouted back: "Don't be so blamed formal--just call me Jane!" and then skillfully picked up the tune again and kept right on tenoring. They were all still enmeshed and in all unison enriching the pent-up confines of their car with close harmonies when the train began to check up bumpingly, and advised by familiar objects beginning to pass the windows Mr. Birdseye realised that they approached their destination. It didn't seem humanly possible that so much time had elapsed with such miraculous rapidity, but there was the indisputable evidence in Langford's Real Estate Division and the trackside warehouses of Brazzell Brothers' Pride of Dixie fertilizer works. From a chosen and accepted comrade he now became also a guide.

"Fellows!" he announced, breaking out of the ring, "we'll be in in just a minute--this is Anneburg!"

Coincidentally with this announcement the conductor appeared at the forward end of the car and in a word gave confirmatory evidence. Of the car porter there was no sign. Duty called him to be present, but prudence bade him nay. He had discretion, that porter.

The song that was being sung at that particular moment--whatever it was--was suffered to languish and die midway of a long-drawn refrain. There was a scattering of the minstrels to snatch up suit cases, bags and other portable impedimenta.

"I'll ride up to the hotel with you," suggested Mr. Birdseye, laying a detaining hand upon the master's elbow. "If I get a chance there's something I want to tell you on the way." He was just remembering he had forgotten to mention that treacherous soft spot back of centre field.

"You bet your blameless young life you'll ride with us!" answered back the other, reaching for a valise.

"What? Lose our honoured and esteemed reception committee now? Not a chance!" confirmed an enormous youth whose bass tones fitted him for the life of a troubadour, but whose breadth of frame qualified him for piano-moving or centre-rushing. With a great bear-hug he lifted Mr. Birdseye in his arms, roughly fondling him.

"You're going to the Hotel Balboa, of course," added Mr. Birdseye, regaining his feet and his breath as the caressing grip of the giant relaxed.

"Hotel Balboa is right, old Pathfinder."

"Then we'd all better take the hotel bus uptown, hadn't we?"

"Just watch us take it."

"I'll lay eight to five that bus has never been properly taken before now."

"But it's about to be." He who uttered this prophecy was the brisk youngster who had objected to being designated by so elaborated a title as Flying Jenny.

"All out!"

Like a chip on the crest of a mountain torrent Mr. Birdseye was borne down the car steps as the train halted beneath the shed of the Anneburg station. Across the intervening tracks, through the gate and the station and out again at the far side of the waiting room the living freshet poured. As he was carried along with it, the Indian being at his right hand, the orange thrower at his left, and behind him irresistible forces ramping and roaring, Mr. Birdseye was aware of a large crowd, of Nick Cornwall, of others locally associated with the destinies of the Anneburg team, of many known to him personally or by name, all staring hard, with puzzled looks, as he went whirling on by. Their faces were visible a fleeting moment, then vanished like faces seen in a fitful dream, and now the human ground swell had surrounded and inundated a large motorbus, property of the Hotel Balboa.

Strong arms reached upward and, as though he had been a child, plucked from his perch the dumfounded driver of this vehicle, with a swing depositing him ten feet distant, well out of harm's way. A youth who plainly understood the mystery of motors clambered up, nimble as a monkey, taking seat and wheel. Another mounted alongside of him and rolled up a magazine to make a coaching horn of it. Another and yet another followed, until a cushioned space designed for two only held four. As pirates aforetime have boarded a wallowing galleon the rest of the crew boarded the body of the bus. They entered by door or by window, whichever chanced to be handier, first firing their hand baggage in with a splendid disregard of consequences.

In less than no time at all, to tallyho tootings, to whoops and to yells and to snatches of melody, the Hotel Balboa bus was rolling through a startled business district, bearing in it, upon it and overflowing from it full twice as many fares as its builder had imagined it conceivably would ever contain when he planned its design and its accommodations. Side by side on the floor at its back door with feet out in space, were jammed together Mr. J. Henry Birdseye and the aforesaid blocky chieftain of the band. Teams checked up as the caravan rolled on. Foot travellers froze in their tracks to stare at the spectacle. Birdseye saw them. They saw Birdseye. And he saw that they saw and felt that be the future what it might, life for him could never bring a greater, more triumphant, more exultant moment than this.

"Is that the opera house right ahead?" inquired his illustrious mate as the bus jounced round the corner of Lattimer Street.

"No, that's the new Second National Bank," explained Mr. Birdseye between jolts. "The opera house is four doors further down--see, right there--just next to where that sign says 'Tascott & Nutt, Hardware.'"

Simultaneously those who rode in front and atop must likewise have read the sign of Tascott & Nutt. For the bus, as though on signal, swerved to the curb before this establishment and stopped dead short, and in chorus a dozen strong voices called for Mr. Nutt, continuing to call until a plump, middle-aged gentleman in his shirt sleeves issued from the interior and crossed the sidewalk, surprise being writ large upon his face. When he had drawn near enough, sinewy hands stretched forth and pounced upon him, and as the bus resumed its journey he most unwillingly was dragged at an undignified dogtrot alongside a rear wheel while strange, tormenting questions were shouted down at him:

"Oh, Mr. Nutt, how's your dear old coco?"

"And how's your daughter Hazel?--charming girl, Hazel!"

"And your son, Philip Bertram? Don't tell me the squirrels have been after that dear Phil Bert again!"

"You'll be careful about the chipmunks this summer, won't you, Mr. Nutt--for our sakes?"

"Old Man Nutt is a good old soul."

But this last was part of a song, and not a question at all.

The victim wrested himself free at last and stood in the highroad speechless with indignation. Lack of breath was likewise a contributing factor. Mr. Birdseye observed, as they drew away from the panting figure, that the starting eyes of Mr. Nutt were fixed upon him recognisingly and accusingly, and realised that he was in some way being blamed for the discomfiture of that solid man and that he had made a sincere enemy for life. But what cared he? Meadow larks, golden breasted, sat in his short ribs and sang to his soul.

And now they had drawn up at the Hotel Balboa, and with Birdseye still in the van they had piled off and were swirling through the lobby to splash up against the bulkhead of the clerk's desk, behind which, with a wide professional smile of hospitality on his lips, Head Clerk Ollie Bates awaited their coming and their pleasure.

"You got our wire?" demanded of him the young manager. "Rooms all ready?"

"Rooms all ready, Mister----"

"Fine and dandy! We'll go right up and wash up for lunch. Here's the list--copy the names onto the register yourself. Where's the elevator? Oh, there it is. All aboard, boys! No, wait a minute," countermanded this young commander who forgot nothing, as he turned and confronted Mr. Birdseye. "Before parting, we will give three cheers for our dear friend, guide and well-wisher, Colonel Birdseye Maple. All together:

"Whee! _Whee!_ =Whee!="

The last and loudest Whee died away; the troupe charged through and over a skirmish line of darky bell hops; they stormed the elevator cage. Half in and half out of it their chief paused to wave a hand to him whom they had just honoured.

"See you later, Colonel," he called across the intervening space. "You said you'd be there when we open up, you know."

"I'll be there, Swifty, on a front seat!" pledged Mr. Birdseye happily.

The overloaded elevator strained and started and vanished upward, vocal to the last. In the comparative calm which ensued Mr. Birdseye, head well up, chest well out, and thumbs in the arm openings of a distended waistcoat, lounged easily but with the obvious air of a conqueror back toward the desk and Mr. Ollie Bates.

"Some noisy bunch!" said Mr. Bates admiringly. "Say, J. Henry, where did they pick you up?"

"They didn't pick me up, I picked them up--met 'em over at Barstow and rode in with 'em."

"Seems like it didn't take you long to make friends with 'em," commented Mr. Bates.

"It didn't take me half a minute. Easiest bunch to get acquainted with you ever saw in your life, Ollie. And kidders? Well, they wrote kidding--that's all--words and music. I wish you could a-seen them stringing old man 'Lonzo Nutt down the street! I like to died!" He unbent a trifle; after all, Mr. Bates was an old friend. "Say, Ollie, that gang won't do a thing to our little old scrub team this afternoon, with Long Leaf Pinderson pitching. I saw him in action--with oranges. He----"

"Say, listen, J. Henry," broke in Mr. Bates. "Who in thunder do you think that gang is you've been associating with?"

"Think it is? Who would it be but the Moguls?"

"Moguls?"

A convulsion seized and overcame Mr. Bates. He bent double, his distorted face in his hands, his shoulders heaving, weird sounds issuing from his throat. Then lifting his head, he opened that big mouth of his, afflicting the adjacent air with raucous and discordant laughter.

"Moguls! Moguls! Say, you need to have your head looked into. Why, J. Henry, the Moguls came in on the twelve-forty-five and Nick Cornwall and the crowd met 'em and they're down to the Hotel Esplanade right this minute, I reckon. We tried to land 'em for the Balboa, but it seemed like they wanted a quiet hotel. Well, they'll have their wish at the Esplanade!"

"Then who--then who are these?"

It was the broken, faltering accent of Mr. Birdseye, sounded wanly and as from a long way off.

"These? Why, it's the College Glee Club from Chickasaw Tech., down in Alabama, that's going to give a concert at the opera house to-night. And you thought all the time you were with the Moguls? Well, you poor simp!"

In addition to simp Mr. Bates also used the words boob, sucker, chunk of Camembert and dub in this connection. But it is doubtful if Mr. Birdseye heard him now. A great roaring, as of dashing cataracts and swirling rapids, filled his ears as he fled away, blindly seeking some sanctuary wherein to hide himself from the gaze of mortal man.

Remaining to be told is but little; but that little looms important as tending to prove that truth sometimes is stranger than fiction. With Swifty Megrue coaching, with Magnus, the Big Chief, backstopping, with Pinderson, master of the spitball, in the box twirling, nevertheless and to the contrary notwithstanding, the Anneburg team that day mopped up, the score standing:

R H E Anneburg 6 9 1 Moguls 4 7 2