"'Don't you do it, Larry Moore; they're not your class. Just hold out a
bit.'
"You know, Bob, how I signed then with the Giants, and how they boosted
my salary at the end of that first year; but it was Fanny Montrose who
made the contracts every time. We had the child then, and I was happy.
The money came quick, and lots of it, and I put it in her lap and said:
"'Do what you want with it; only I want you to enjoy it like a lady.'
"Maybe I was wrong there--maybe I was. It was pride, I'll admit; but
there wasn't a lady came to the stands that looked finer than Fanny
Montrose, as I always used to call her. I got to be something of a
figure, as you know, and the little woman was always riding back and
forth to the games in some automobile, and more often with Paul Bargee.
"One afternoon Ed Nichols, who was catching me then, came up with a
serious face and said: 'Where's your lady to-day, Larry--and Paul
Bargee?' And by the way he said it I knew what he had in mind, and good
friend that he was of mine I liked to have throttled him. They told me
to pitch the game, and I did. I won it too. Then I ran home without
changing my clothes, the people staring at me, and ran up the stairs and
flung open the door and stopped and called: 'Fanny Montrose!'
"And I called again, and I called a third time, and only the child came
to answer me. Then I knew in my heart that Fanny Montrose had left me
and run off with Paul Bargee.
III
"I waited all that night without tasting food or moving, listening for
her step on the stairs. And in the morning the postman came without a
line or a word for me. I couldn't understand; for I had been a good
husband to her, and though I thought over everything that had happened
since we'd been married, I couldn't think of a thing that I'd done to
hurt her--for I wasn't thinking then of the millions of Paul Bargee.
"In the afternoon there came a dirty little lawyer shuffling in to see
me, with blinking little eyes behind his black-rimmed spectacles--a toad
of a man.
"'Who are you?' I said, 'and what are you doing here?'
"'I'm simply an attorney,' he said, cringing before my look--'Solomon
Scholl, on a very disagreeable duty,' he said.
"'Do you come from her?' I said, and I caught my breath.
"'I come from Mr. Paul Bargee,' he said, 'and I'd remind you, Mr. Moore,
that I come as an attorney on a disagreeable duty.'
"With that I drew back and looked at him in amazement, and said: 'What
has he got to say to me?'
"'My client,' he said, turning the words over with the tip of his
tongue, 'regrets exceedingly--'
"'Don't waste words!' I said angrily. 'What are you here for?'
"'My client,' he said, looking at me sidelong, 'empowers me to offer you
fifteen thousand dollars if you will promise to make no trouble in this
matter.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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