in my friend Courtney's terminal hotel scheme—and I'm scared yet." 

 "Courtney?" repeated Johnny. "That's the name they gave me at Mallard & Tyne's office this afternoon. They told me that he has tied up the only available block the railroad company overlooked." 

 "Tied it up!" exploded the colonel. "Bless my soul, it has him tied up! Courtney's company blew so high that none of the pieces has come down yet. Meantime his enthusiasm is likely to cost him a round two and a quarter million dollars." 

 "He must have had a high fever," commented Johnny. "How could a man be so forgetful of that much money?" 

 "He thought his friends were game," explained the colonel; "and, in spite of his long and successful business experience, he over-looked the difference between a promise and a promissory note. He nailed his stock subscribers down with hasty conversation only, and then rushed off and grabbed the six collected parcels of that block, for fear it might get away before he had his company legally organized." 

 "And now he can't unspike it," guessed Johnny smilingly. "Watch out, Colonel!" 

 There was a lively scramble in the two boxes as the first foul tip of the season whizzed directly at them. Gamble, who had captained his village nine, had that ball out of the air and was bowing jovially to the applause before Gresham had quite succeeded in squeezing himself down behind the door of the box. 

 Naturally it was Polly who led the applause; and Constance shocked the precise Gresham by joining in heartily. 

 She was looking up at Johnny with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks when Gresham came out of his cyclone cellar—and, if he had disliked Gamble before, now he hated him. 

 It is a strange feature of the American national game that the more perfectly it is played the duller it is. This was a pitchers' battle; and the game droned along, through inning after inning, with seldom more than three men to bat in each half, while the score board presented a most appropriate double procession of naughts. Spectators, warmly praising that smoothly oiled mechanical process of one, two, three and out, and telling each other that this was a great game, nevertheless yawned and dropped their score cards, and put away their pencils, and looked about the grandstand in search of faces they knew. 

 In such a moment Colonel Bouncer, 

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