“Was it Carlisle?” ast Carey.
“No,” says Ike, “his folks wasn’t very well off.”
“That’s what barred me from Smith,” I says.
“I was goin’ to tackle Cornell’s,” says Carey, “but the doctor told me I’d have hay fever if I didn’t stay up North.”
“Your friend writes long letters,” I says.
“Yes,” says Ike; “he’s tellin’ me about a ball player.”
“Where does he play?” ast Carey.
“Down in the Texas League—Fort Wayne,” says Ike.
“It looks like a girl’s writin’,” Carey says.
“A girl wrote it,” says Ike. “That’s my friend’s sister, writin’ for him.”
“Didn’t they teach writin’ at this here college where he went?” says Carey.
“Sure,” Ike says, “they taught writin’, but he got his hand cut off in a railroad wreck.”
“How long ago?” I says.
“Right after he got out o’ college,” says Ike.
“Well,” I says, “I should think he’d of learned to write with his left hand by this time.”
“It’s his left hand that was cut off,” says Ike; “and he was left-handed.”
“You get a letter every day,” says Carey. “They’re all the same writin’. Is he tellin’ you about a different ball player every time he writes?”
“No,” Ike says. “It’s the same ball player. He just tells me what he does every day.”
“From the size o’ the letters, they don’t play nothin’ but doubleheaders down there,” says Carey.
We figured that Ike spent most of his evenin’s answerin’ the letters from his “friend’s sister,” so we kept tryin’ to date him up for shows and parties to see how he’d duck out of ’em. He was bugs over spaghetti, so we told him one day that they was goin’ to be a big feed of it over to Joe’s that night and he was invited.
“How long’ll it last?” he says.
“Well,” we says, “we’re goin’ right over there after the game and stay till they close up.”
“I can’t go,” he says, “unless they leave me come home at eight bells.”
“Nothin’ doin’,” says Carey. “Joe’d get sore.”
“I can’t go then,” says Ike.
“Why not?” I ast him.
“Well,” he says, “my landlady locks up the house at eight and I left my key home.”
“You can come and stay with me,” says Carey.
“No,” he says, “I can’t sleep in a strange bed.”
“How do you get along when we’re on the road?” says I.
“I don’t never sleep the first night anywheres,” he says. “After that I’m all right.”
“You’ll have time to chase home and get your key right after the game,” I told him.
“The key ain’t home,” says Ike. “I lent it to one o’ the other fellas and he’s went out o’ town and took it with him.”
“Couldn’t you borry another key off’n the landlady?” Carey ast him.
“No,” he says, “that’s the only one they is.”
Well, the day before we started East again, Ike come into the clubhouse all smiles.
“Your birthday?” I ast him.
“No,” he says.
“What do you feel so good about?” I says.
“Got a letter from my old man,” he says. “My uncle’s goin’ to get well.”
“Is that the one in Nebraska?” says I.
“Not right in Nebraska,” says Ike. “Near there.”
But afterwards we got the right dope from Cap. Dolly’d blew in from Missouri and was goin’ to make the trip with her sister.
V
Well, I want to alibi Carey and I for what come off in Boston. If we’d of had any idear what we was doin’, we’d never did it. They wasn’t nobody outside o’ maybe Ike and the dame that felt worse over it than I and Carey.
The first two days we didn’t see nothin’ of Ike and her except out to the park. The rest o’ the time they was sight-seein’ over to Cambridge and down to Revere and out to Brook-a-line and all the other places where the rubes go.
But when we come into the beanery after the third game Cap’s wife called us over.
“If you want to see somethin’ pretty,” she says, “look at the third finger on Sis’s left hand.”
Well, o’ course we knowed before we looked that it wasn’t goin’ to be no hangnail. Nobody was su’prised when Dolly blew into the dinin’ room with it—a rock that Ike’d bought off’n Diamond Joe the first trip to New York. Only o’ course it’d been set into a lady’s-size ring instead o’ the automobile tire he’d been wearin’.
Cap and his missus and Ike and Dolly ett supper together, only Ike didn’t eat nothin’, but just set there blushin’ and spillin’ things on the tablecloth. I heard him excusin’ himself for not havin’ no appetite. He says he couldn’t never eat when he was clost to the ocean. He’d forgot about them sixty-five oysters he destroyed the first night o’ the trip before.
He was goin’ to take her to a show, so after supper he went upstairs to change his collar. She had to doll up, too, and o’ course Ike was through long before her.
If you remember the hotel in Boston, they’s a little parlor where the piano’s at and then they’s another little parlor openin’ off o’ that. Well, when Ike come down Smitty was playin’ a few chords and I and Carey was harmonizin’. We seen Ike go up to the desk to leave his key and we called him in. He tried to duck away, but we wouldn’t stand for it.
We ast him what he was all duded up for and he says he was goin’ to the theayter.
“Goin’ alone?” says Carey.
“No,” he says, “a friend o’ mine’s goin’ with me.”
“What do you say if we go along?” says Carey.
“I ain’t only got two tickets,” he says.
“Well,” says Carey, “we can go down there with you and buy our own seats; maybe we can all get together.”
“No,” says Ike. “They ain’t no more seats. They’re all sold out.”
“We can buy some off’n the scalpers,” says Carey.
“I wouldn’t if I was you,” says Ike. “They say the show’s rotten.”
“What are you goin’ for, then?” I ast.
“I didn’t hear about it bein’ rotten till I got the tickets,” he says.
“Well,” I says, “if you don’t want to go
