“Hold on! Hold on!” sputtered Cope desperately. “I ain’t said you was right; I ain’t acknowledged Tom Locke’s name is Hazelton.” “You don’t have to,” returned Riley; “I _know_ it. You can send him down to us in the mornin’. Just to save argument, I’ll pay him the same sal’ry you’re payin’, though I reckon it’s more’n I offered him.” He made a move to depart. “Hold on!” cried Cope again. “You’ll never git him. We won’t give him up.” “Oh, won’t ye? Then you oughter know what’ll happen. He won’t be ’lowed to pitch ag’in, and the games he’s pitched a’ready will be thrown outer the percentage count. You better think it over calm and reasonable, Cope. Good night.” CHAPTER XXIII LEFTY’S FICKLE MEMORY They left him there, shaking with rage. He heard them laugh outside the door when it had closed behind them, and he lifted and shook both his fists in their direction. “Ye shan’t have him!” he snarled. “I’ll never give the boy up! It’s one o’ Bancroft’s mean tricks. They’ll do anything to get ahead of Kingsbridge. It’s a measly shame they’ve tumbled to who the youngster is. I’d give somethin’ to find out how that happened.” He stopped suddenly, a hand lifted, his head thrown back, his mouth open. “I know!” he breathed. “That must be th’ way it was. Bent King come to me and asked a heap of questions ’bout Lefty――where was he from, how did I find him, was he a college man?――and all that. I didn’t tell him nothin’, but all the time I had an oneasy feelin’ that he knowed more’n was a good thing f’r him to know. If Bent’s been and blowed he oughter be shot!” Henry Cope did not sleep well that night, and he rose in the morning at an unusually early hour, even for him. When he appeared at the Central Hotel and inquired for Locke, he was told that Tom was not yet up, and did not often get to breakfast before eight o’clock. “I’ve got t’ see him right away,” said Cope. “I’ll go up to his room. It’ll be all right.” “I wonder what’s the matter with him?” said the clerk to a bell hop, when Cope had hurried away up the stairs. “He looks all broke up this morning.” “Mebbe the groc’ry business and baseball is too much for him,” grinned the boy. “He’s fussin’ over the team all the time. What did they hire a manager for? Why don’t he let Hutchinson run the ball team?” Cope knocked twice at the door of a room. After the second knock, a sleepy voice asked who was there. “It’s me,” answered the man outside. “It’s Mr. Cope. Somethin’ important. Got to see ye right away.” In a few moments the door was opened, and Locke stood there, in pajamas, yawning. “It must be important to bring you around this hour, Mr. Cope,” he said, with a sleepy laugh. “Come in.” When the door was closed, the grocer faced the young pitcher. “Hazelton,” he said, “why didn’t y’u tell me you had been negotiatin’ with Riley?” Much of Locke’s sleepy appearance vanished.