“No,” said old Jack, a trifle sadly; “slipped up on that play. Made an error, and another fellow fanned me out. You know, it’s mighty easy to lose in a game like that if you don’t keep on your toes all the time. I don’t often talk about it, but I don’t mind telling you how it was.” Lefty said nothing, and the old manager continued: “She was the only dame I ever got really smashed on, a little, dark-eyed Irish girl by the name of Madge. Met her after a game in which I was pretty near the whole show, having made two homers, a three-bagger, and a single. She was just bubbling over with enthusiasm, and when she turned them eyes of hern on me, and handed me a smile with her teeth shining like polished chinyware, I just felt that it was all up with me. I was like a busher in his first Big League game, all cold and hot and shaky and queer clean down to my toes. I knew in a jiffy that she was the one for me. “Well, there ain’t no need to string the story out,” he went on. “I rushed her for all I was worth when the team was playin’ to home. Things went along swimmin’, and we had it arranged somehow before I ever knowed just how it come round that we would play the big game together on the same team. That is, we was going to get spliced some time, and I didn’t care how soon the job was done. She had another guy that was rushing her, too, before I hove in on the horizon; but I had his groove, and he was fanning every time he stepped up to the plate. “Now, listen to me, and hear how the whole game went wrong in the ninth inning. My sister Kitty comes on to see me unexpected, and, of course, I spreads myself to give her a good time. Madge didn’t know nothing ’bout it, and she sees me blowin’ Kit off to cabs and theaters and feeds, and a-kissin’ her good-by when I had to send her home one night sudden on account of an unexpected turn. What did that little hot-headed, black-eyed girl do? She just writ me a red-hot letter, tellin’ me what she thought of a deceivin’, heart-breakin’, double-dyed wretch like I was, and announcin’ that she was leavin’ town. She didn’t leave no address, either. At first I took it as a kind of joke, thinkin’ I could straighten things out all right with Madge. But next thing I heard, within a week, she was hooked to the other guy, and I was down and out in the series. “I ain’t never struck one like Madge since, and I ain’t likely to; so, you see, here I am――an old bach. It’s tough on a man when a girl throws him that fashion, with no chance to explain; but I’ve always tried to console myself by sayin’ that one who’d do such a thing would likely keep a guy in hot water the most of the time when she got him. It’s poor consolation, but it’s all I’ve got.” Lefty was frowning as he gazed through the faint purple shadows toward the little lake, on which the afterglow of the sunset was reflected, and he stirred uneasily, passing a hand across his forehead. After some moments of silence, he said: