Heavy steps sounded on the stairs. A tall, slim, sallow man entered, a puffing, red-faced, rolypoly individual toddling at his heels. These were Timothy Jorkins and Ira Butler, both financial backers of the team, and members of the Bancroft B. B. A. “Here you are!” said Jorkins, in a deep voice pregnant with accusation, fixing his eyes on Riley. “Yes, here you are!” gurgled Butler, likewise glaring at the manager. “Yes, here I am,” rasped Mike, returning their gaze. “What about it?” “What about it?” rumbled the tall man excitedly. “Do you say what about it? Have you the nerve to say what about it? We are the ones to say that. What about it, Mr. Riley; what about it?” “Yes, sir, Mr. Riley, what about it?” wheezed the fat man, digging up a limp handkerchief, and painfully mopping around inside his collar, his face becoming still more beetlike during the process. “That’s what we want to know.” Riley removed the cigar from his mouth, and spat on the floor. “You’re all wrought up, ain’t ye?” he sneered. “Goin’ to jump on me good and hard, hey? There’s some poor losers in this burg.” “Bancrofters’ll never stand losing to Kingsbridge,” declared Jorkins. “You were dead certain their left-hand kid pitcher couldn’t repeat the trick he played on us in their town last Saturday, but he did it, and everybody’s chewing the rag. If he can keep that up, they’ll grab the pennant away from us. They’re getting the jump on us at the beginning of the season. It’s plain we haven’t a pitcher to hold his own with that man Locke. Hoover blew up to-day. Locke got his goat, and he won’t be any more use against that team. They’ll keep Locke just to run against us.” “Has Bancroft ever had a losin’ team with me managin’?” “No, but――” “She won’t this year, either. Leave it to me. Don’t go off your nut so soon.” “What do you propose to do?” asked Butler. “I ain’t had much time to figger on it yet, but you can bet your life that I’ll do somethin’.” “I lost a hundred on the game to-day,” said Dyke mournfully. “Where did they get hold of Locke?” questioned the lawyer. “I don’t know,” confessed Riley. “Cope dug him up, and he ain’t tellin’ where. Hutchinson don’t know no more about the youngster than we do.” “Perhaps he lies,” put in Jorkins. “Perhaps he does know.” “He wouldn’t take the trouble to lie about it if he knew, and he told me straight that he didn’t know.” “Think his conscience would keep him from lying?” asked Fancy. “Conscience! If Bob Hutchinson has one, nobody ever accused him of it. But if Locke was his find he’d be taking the credit, you bet. “Don’t nobody think for a minute that I’m goin’ to sit round and twiddle my thumbs while Kingsbridge is winnin’ games off us. I ain’t built that way. We’ll down ’em somehow or other, mark that.” “We ought to have a pitcher as good as Locke, at any cost,” was the opinion of Jorkins. “At any cost,” agreed Butler. “Why don’t we have him?”