. 'And last week I had dinner with Santa
Claus and the Pope. So I suppose you're going to tell me that you are
close buddies with Three-Fingered Brown, Chance, Tinker and Evans--I
mean, Evers--and all of those fellows?'

"'No,' I said. 'I don't know them. But some day I'll be playing with
them, or against them, because I'm going to get in the Big Leagues.'

"'Where are you going now?' asked the firemen.

"'Back home to Cleveland,' I told them.

"'Have you got any money?' they asked me.

"'No,' I answered. I had to be honest, after all.

"So they got up a little pool of about five dollars and said, 'Well, on
your way. And use this to get something to eat.'

"I thanked them, and as I left I told them that some day I would be back
again. 'When I get to the Big Leagues,' I said, I'm coming out to visit
you when we get to Chicago.'

"And home I went. I played around home all the rest of the summer, and
then the next summer--that would have been 1907, if I recall correctly,
even though I'm remembering things that have yet to happen and I'm
remembering them backwards--I took a job with an ice cream company in
Cleveland. I made twenty-five dollars a week: Fifteen for checking the
cans on the truck that would take the ice cream away, and ten dollars a
Sunday, when I pitched for the company team. It was a good team. We
played the best semipro clubs in the Cleveland area, and I beat them
all. I was only seventeen, but I hardly lost a game.

"Then one day I got a postal card from the Cleveland Ball Club, asking
me to come in and talk to them. Mr. Kilfoyl and Mr. Somers, the owners
of the club, wanted to see me."

"Hurray!" said Hootsey. "So then, your father must have come around by
then?"

"Hardly!" said the shadow. "My Dad saw the postal card and became very
upset. 'So,' he said to me. 'I see that you still want to be a
ballplayer.'

"'Yes,' I admitted. 'I do. And I'm going to be a great one, too! Just
you wait and see! Some day you're going to be proud of me!'

"'Yeah,' he shrugged. 'Proud of nothing.'

"But I went to the Cleveland club's office all the same, and Mr. Kilfoyl
and Mr. Somers were both there. I told them that I had received their
card. 'You know,' I added, 'You got me into a little jam. My dad doesn't
want me to be a ballplayer.'

"'Don't you worry,' said Mr. Kilfoyl 'After you sign with us and get
into the Big Leagues, he'll think differently about it.'

"'Well,' I said, 'I'm not signing with y