last night, and I hope that terrific mixture won’t kill you.”
“I think it has,” said Mr. Arnold.
“I acted,” said Walter, “like a first-class mutt.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” said Mr. Arnold. “I don’t know how you acted. I don’t know if you acted at all. All as I remember is that I and you and some girl were together.”
“She’s my wife, Arnold. She’s forgiven me for two reasons. One is that I’ve jumped aboard the wagon for keeps. And the other is that she knows I was downhearted and had reason to be.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“I can’t go.”
“Go where?”
“Well, to France.”
“Good Lord! That’s the last place I’d want to be.”
“Not if you’re a real man.”
“Well, I certainly ain’t, not this morning.”
“And I certainly wasn’t last night. But it’ll be different from now on.”
“If you want to go, why don’t you go?”
“They won’t let me in. My vision’s bad.”
“It was all right when you picked that girl.”
“But even if it was all right now, I couldn’t leave her. We have nothing saved.”
“Well, listen, kid: I don’t believe you’re liable to save nothing, hanging round the Red Duck nights.”
“There’s no mistake about that,” said Walter. “But you can bet I’m going to save from this out, because the day may come when they’re not so particular about vision.”
“Do you think we’re in for extra innings?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And they need more men than they’ve got?”
“You bet they need them—all they can grab.”
“Well,” said Mr. Arnold, “I’m going back to that bed and lay down awhile longer.”
“Sure. Go ahead, and I’ll be running along.”
Walter started toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” said Mr. Arnold. “On your way out, I wish you’d tell them to send me up a drink.”
“Something brand new and fancy?”
“Yeah! Ice water,” said Mr. Arnold. …
“How old are you?” asked the doctor Arnold consulted a little later.
“Thirty-seven,” answered Mr. Arnold without evasion.
“There’s just one thing the matter with you. You drink too much.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken, Doc,” said Mr. Arnold. “I’m bone dry.”
“Since when?”
“Well, about three o’clock yesterday morning.”
“I thought so.”
“I’m through with it now.”
“If you want to get anywhere, you’ll have to be.”
“But if I obey orders, there’s a chance?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Doc. Shoot!” ordered Mr. Arnold. …
Eddie was taking the third inning from the ticker when Mr. Arnold blew in.
“Well, if it ain’t old Jay,” said Eddie. “I figured you must be sick when you didn’t show up yesterday, with Detroit here and everything.”
“I was sick, good and sick,” said Mr. Arnold.
“And why ain’t you there today?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. It don’t seem right to go and watch a lot of fellas play ball when they’s a game across on the other side that really means something. And besides, a man can’t get no exercise setting in the bleachers.”
“Who in blazes wants exercise?”
“I do.”
“You get plenty of exercise walking from one place to the next.”
“You know how much I walk! If they was a streetcar line from one side of my bed to the other, they’d get all my nickels on a restless night.”
“Well,” said Eddie, “this ain’t giving you no service.”
“I don’t want no service.”
“You certainly are sick!”
“I’m sick, but it ain’t incurable. It ain’t even going to cost me anything to get well—that is, no money.”
“What is it going to cost you?”
“Just some nerve, Eddie—enough to carry me through the rye-fields without stopping to pick the fruit.”
“You’re on the wagon?”
“Yes sir.”
“For how long?”
“Well, if those Dutchmen’s aim is as good as they say, it’ll be all my life.”
“What in thunder are you talking about? Have you went nuts?”
“I’ve learned something, Eddie.”
“You’ve been to a doctor or something.”
“Yes sir.”
“And he throwed a scare into you?”
“Well, he did that too. He said I’d last about two years longer if I didn’t cut it out right away. So I’ve cut it out, and I may not even last two years. But if they get me, it’ll be with a shot that don’t need no chaser. I’ve learned about this war, Eddie. They’s fellas right here in this town that want to go and can’t. They’re tied down with their families or something. And they’s fellas all over this country that don’t think much of a guy that can go and won’t. Well, I can go and I’m going.”
“When?”
“Not for a couple of months—maybe more. They won’t take me now. But the Doc says if I’ll go to some springs and boil awhile, and if I’ll exercise, and if I’ll behave, he thinks eight or nine weeks will make a man out of me. I’m leaving the old burg tonight, and I thought I’d drop in and say goodbye.”
“Well, I’m hanged!” said Eddie. “And it was only two days ago that you was worried to death for the fear Wilson was going to take out your meter. And I was trying to kid you, telling you that night would probably be the last.”
“It was,” said Mr. Arnold.
“And did you make it a good one?”
“Oh, boy!” said Mr. Arnold.
“There’s another inning coming in,” said Eddie, and he walked over to the ticker. “Cleveland nothing, Sox two. Did you see what Felsch done yesterday?”
“No,” said Mr. Arnold. “I was reading about some other Dutchmen, on the front page.”
The Clubby Roadster
Young Harry Cross breezed into my office one morning in May with the sad news that his wife’s Aunt Myrtle had died of the blues in Memphis and had left Harry and she twenty-five hundred dollars.
“And only thirty-nine years old!” said Harry.
“Don’t kick about her going so young,” I told him. “You’d ought to be glad she succumbed before spending the twenty-five hundred.”
“That’s no way to talk!” he said. “I care more for Nan’s relatives than all the money in the world.”
“But it looks like the hand of Providence was in this,” said I. “It means you’re at liberty to leave home and go to France. I wish I could.”
“Why don’t you?” he asked me.
“How can I,” I said, “with a dependable wife and no millionaire aunts?”
“But what’s twenty-five hundred dollars?” said Harry. “The interest
