"Most of the boys are that way," laughed Joe. "There are just two things that every ball player is ready to do, take nourishment and nag the umpire." Iredell laughed as he bit off the end of a cigar. "That poor umpire got his this afternoon," he said. "With McRae on one side and Everett on the other I thought he'd be pulled to pieces." "He was sure up against a hard proposition," agreed Joe. "The next hardest was in a play that happened when I was on the Pittston team. A fellow poled out a hit that went down like a shot between left and center. A lot of carriages were parked at the end of the field and a big coach dog ran after the ball, got it in his mouth and skipped down among the carriages where the fielders couldn't get at him. It would have doubled you up to have seen them coaxing the brute to be a good dog and give the ball up. In the meantime, the batter was tearing around the bases and made home before the ball got back." "And how did his Umps decide it?" asked Iredell, with interest. "He was flabbergasted for a while," replied Joe, "but he finally called it a two-base hit and let it go at that." "An umpire's life is not a happy one," laughed Iredell. "He earns every dollar that he gets. I suppose that's what some of us fellows will be doing, too, when we begin to go back." "It will be a good while before you come to that, Dell," Joe replied. "You've played a rattling game at short this year, and you're a fixture with the Giants." "I don't know about that," said the shortstop slowly. "Fixtures sometimes work loose, you know." "It won't be so in this case," said Joe, purposely misunderstanding him. "McRae wouldn't let go of you." "Not if he could help it," responded Iredell. "Well, he doesn't have to worry about that just yet," said Joe. "How long does your contract have to run?" "A year yet," replied Iredell. "But contracts, you know, are like pie crust, they're easily broken." "What do you mean by that?" demanded Joe sharply. "Oh, nothing, nothing at all," said Iredell, a little nervously, as though he had said more than he intended. "But to tell the truth, Joe, I'm sore on this whole question of contracts. It's like a yoke that galls me." "Oh, I don't know," responded Joe. "A good many folks would like to be galled that way. A good big salary, traveling on Pullmans, stopping at the best hotels, posing for pictures, and having six months of the year to ourselves. If that's a yoke, it's lined with velvet." "But it's a yoke, just the same," persisted Iredell stubbornly. "Most men in business are free to accept any offer that's made to them. We can't. We may be offered twice as much as we're getting, but we have to stay where we are just the same."