ob! What are you doing back here? Did you come to give me
that free ticket you promised me?'

"'No,' I said to him sadly. I'm sorry. I'm going back home to Cleveland,
and I want to know what time a freight comes by.' Then I explained to
him about everything that had happened. Oh, he was very nice to me. He
completely understood where I was coming from. After we had talked for
awhile, he said, 'Look, the train comes in at one o'clock in the morning
and the engine unhooks and goes down to the water tower. When it does,
you sneak into the baggage compartment. Meanwhile, I'll talk to the
baggage man before the engine gets hooked up again. So when the train
pulls out and is about five miles out of town, he'll open the baggage
door and let you out.'

"And that is pretty much what happened," continued Rube. "When we were
five miles out of town, the door opened and the baggage man appeared. I
talked with him all the way to Chicago, and as we got close to the yards
he says to me, 'Okay, you'd better get ready to jump now. There are a
lot of detectives around here and if you're not careful, they'll jump
on you and throw you in jail. So once you get to the ground, do not
hesitate! Beat it away from here as fast as you can!'

"The baggage man must have told the engineer about me, as we slowed down
to a crawl just before we approached the Chicago yards, and off I
jumped. I got out of there quick and took off down the street. I don't
know what street it was, and I'm not sure where I was headed, but I do
remember that I was awfully tired. It was the middle of the morning and
I had hardly slept a wink the night before. I had staggered about three
or four blocks when I passed by a fire engine house. Evidently all of
the firemen were out at a fire, because the place was deserted. I was
tired, very tired, so I went in and sat down. Well, they had a big
bellied iron stove in there, and it was warm. I guess I must have fallen
asleep, as the next thing I knew, a couple of firemen were shaking me
and doing everything they could do to wake me up. They called me a bum
and a lot of other bad names, and told me to get out of there or they'd
have me thrown in jail.

"'I'm no bum,' I said. 'I'm a ballplayer.'

"'What?' the firemen laughed. 'You, a ballplayer? Where did you ever
play?'

"'In Cleveland, around the sandlots,' I told them proudly. 'And in
Waterloo, Iowa, too! I beat the Keokuk team six to one!'

"'Yeah?' said one of the firemen