Batting to Win: A Story of College BaseballChadwick, Lester
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Batting to Win: A Story of College Baseball
Chadwick, Lester
Baseball stories; College sports -- Juvenile fiction
"'During a raid on an alleged gambling house kept by Tony Belato in
Dartwell, just outside of Haddonfield on Thursday night, a number of
college students, believed to be from Boxer Hall, Fairview or Randall
were captured. Several got away, and those who were locked up gave false
names, it is believed. One young man, who stated that he was Sidney
Henderson, fought the officers, and was not subdued until after a
struggle. None of the college boys seemed to know him, but it was stated
that he had lost heavily in playing poker. The prisoners were fined ten
dollars each, and this morning were discharged by Judge Perkins with a
warning.'"
There was silence for a moment following Miss Harrison's reading of the
clipping.
"What's that?" cried Tom at last, and his words seemed to break the
spell. "Arrested in a gambling raid--Sid Henderson? Of course it must be
some one else! But who sent the clipping to you, Miss Harrison?"
"I don't know," was her answer, as she looked full at Sid. "It was a
piece of impertinence, at any rate," and she began to tear up the
newspaper item. "Of course it wasn't you, Mr. Henderson. I should not
have read it. I don't suppose you were within miles of the place where
it happened. These newspaper reporters are so careless, sometimes. You
weren't there, were you?" she went on.
As they all remembered it afterward it seemed strange that Miss Harrison
should so insist on her question, but, later, it was explained that her
family, as well as herself, had an extraordinary abhorrence of any games
of chance, since her brother had once been fleeced by gamblers, and
there had been some disgrace attached to it.
"You weren't there; were you?" repeated Miss Harrison, and her eyes were
fastened on those of Sid.
His face was strangely white, and his hands trembled. His chums looked
at him in surprise.
"I--I wasn't arrested in any raid," he said, and his voice was husky.
The girl seemed to catch at the evasion.
"Were you there?" she demanded. "I--of course--I have no right to ask
you that--but--this clipping, coming to me--as it did--and under the
circumstances----"
"I wasn't--I wasn't arrested," faltered Sid. "It's all--it's all a
mistake!"
Almost instantly there came to Phil and Tom at the same time a memory of
Sid's queer actions of late--of his strange absences from college--of
his hurried departures on receiving notes--of the smell of tobacco on
his clothes.
"Were you at the gambling place, in Dartwell?" asked Miss Harrison
coldly, and it was not until later that the others understood her
strange insistence and hatred of games of chance. "Were you there?"
"I--I wasn't arrested!" blurted out Sid. "I--I can't explain--I was in
Dartwell that night--but--but it is all a mistake--I don't see how my
name got in the paper."
"Sometimes these matters get out in spite of all that is done to keep
them quiet," remarked the girl, and her voice sounded to Sid like the
clash of steel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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