My Roomy | Page 7

word he starts in on his 'Silver Threads' and it wasn't two minutes till the game was busted up and the bunch--all but me--was out o' there. I'd of beat it too, only be stopped yellin' as soon as they'd went.
"You're same buster!" I says. "You bust up ball games in the afternoon and poker games at night."
"Yes," he says; "that's my business--bustin' things." And before I knowed what he was about he picked up the pitcher of ice-water that was on the floor and throwed it out the window--through the glass and all.
Right then I give him a plain talkin' to. I tells him how near he come to gettin' canned down in St. Louis because he raised so much Cain singin' in the hotel.
"But I had to keep my voice in shape," he says. "If I ever get dough enough to get married the girl and me'll go out singin' together."
"Out where?" I ast.
"Out on the vaudeville circuit," says Elliott.
"Well," I says, "if her voice is like yours you'll be wastin' money if you travel round. Just stay up in Muskegon and we'll hear you, all right!"
I told him he wouldn't never get no dough if he didn't behave himself. That, even if we got in the World's Series, he wouldn't be with us--unless he cut out the foolishness.
"We ain't goin' to get in no World's Series," he says, "and I won't never get a bunch o' money at once; so it looks like I couldn't get married this fall."
Then I told him we played a city series every fall. He'd never thought o' that and it tickled him to death. I told him the losers always got about five hundred apiece and that we were about due to win it and get about eight hundred. "But," I says, " we still got a good chance for the old pennant; and if I was you I wouldn't give up hope o' that yet--not where John can hear you, anyway."
"No," he says, "we won't win no pennant, because he won't let mime play reg'lar; but I don't care so long as we're sure o' that city-series dough."
"You ain't sure of it if you don't behave," I says.
"Well," says he, very serious, "I guess I'll behave." And he did--till we made our first Eastern trip.

VI
went to Boston first, and that crazy bunch goes out and piles up a three-run lead on us in seven innin's the first day. It was the pitcher's turn to lead off in the eighth, so up goes Elliott to bat for him. He kisses the first thing they hands him for three bases; and we says, on the bench: "Now we'll get 'em!"--because, you know, a three-run lead wasn't nothin' in Boston.
"Stay right on that bag!" John hollers to Elliott.
Mebbe if John hadn't said nothin' to him everythin' would of been all right; but when Perdue starts to pitch the first ball to Tommy, Elliott starts to steal home. He's out as far as from here to Seattle.
If I'd been carryin' a gun I'd of shot him right through the heart. As it was, I thought John'd kill him with a bat, because he was standin' there with a couple of 'em, waitin' for his turn; but I guess John was too stunned to move. He didn't even seem to see Elliott when he went to the bench. After I'd cooled off a little I says:
"Beat it and get into your clothes before John comes in. Then go to the hotel and keep out o' sight."
When I got up in the room afterward, there was Elliott, lookin' as innocent and happy as though he'd won fifty bucks with a pair o' treys.
"I thought you might of killed yourself," I says.
"What for?" he says.
"For that swell play you made," says I.
"What was the matter within the play?" ast Elliott, surprised. "It was all right when I done it in St. Louis."
"Yes," I says; "but they was two out in St. Louis and we wasn't no three runs behind."
"Well," he says, "if it was all right in St. Louis I don't see why it was wrong here."
"It's a diff'rent climate here," I says, too disgusted to argue with him.
"I wonder if they'd let me sing in this climate?" says Elliott.
"Na," I says. "Don't sing in this hotel, because we don't want to get fired out o' here--the eats is too good."
"All right," he says. "I won't sing." But when I starts down to supper he says: "I'm li'ble to do somethin' worse'n sing."
He didn't show up in the dinin' roam and John went to the boxin' show after supper; so it looked like him and Elliott wouldn't run into each other till the murder had left John's heart. I was glad o' that--because a Mass'chusetts jury might