“The doc says I’ll have to stay at home until Monday, at least,” he said. “I’ll lose Saturday’s game. If Frank manages to get into that and then should play for an inning against Petersburg, as he’s likely to, it’s all off! Isn’t that the dickens? Just when I thought I had that wager cinched, too!” Joe was properly sympathetic and Jack finally rang off, exacting a promise from Joe to call up the next day. Aunt Sarah insisted that Joe should spray his throat after the interview. It didn’t do, she said, to take risks, and for her part she was far from convinced that folks couldn’t catch things over the telephone! When, the next afternoon, on the way to the field, Joe stopped in at a drug store and called up Jack it was Mrs. Strobe who answered. Jack, she said, was not so well today and she thought it best for him not to try to talk. Joe went on to practice feeling rather worried about his chum, and wasn’t comforted until Mr. Talbot had assured him that quinsy seldom, if ever, resulted fatally. On Friday there was no practice for the players, and Joe, rather at a loose-end, accepted Sidney Morris’s invitation to go to the “movies.” It was well after five when he reached the Adams Building. Mr. Chester Young was talking in a low voice with a man who looked to Joe very much like a bill-collector. Whoever he was, he presently departed with no great show of satisfaction. The day’s business had been, Joe discovered, surprisingly poor, the register showing less than nine dollars. And when Young reminded Joe that it was pay-day, Joe had to dig into his pocket for enough to make up the difference between the cash on hand and the amount of the clerk’s wages. He called up the Strobes on the telephone after supper and talked for a few minutes with Mr. Strobe. That gentleman announced that Jack was feeling pretty mean, but that the doctor thought he was doing as well as could be expected and that he would probably be out and about by the first of the week. After that Joe settled down to two hours of hard study in preparation for next week’s examinations, wrote a long letter to his mother and finally went to bed just as midnight sounded. In the morning he went back to the news-stand and remained there until noon. Saturday was usually the best day of the week for business, possibly because many of the offices paid off their employees then, and today both Joe and Young were kept busy attending to the wants of customers. When Joe went home for dinner the sales had already mounted to over fifteen dollars and gave promise of atoning for the poor business of the day previous.