Ain't I the great little buyer?"

Oh, boy!

"Well," I says to Alex, "it seems to be the open season for takin' me.
Does that bet go?"

"It does!" he says, rubbin' his hands together like a crap shooter.

"And I produce the first candidate for fame and fortune?"

"Bring him on!" he grins, winkin' at the wife--a thing he knows I
loathe.

We shook hands on it and I went out into the kitchen to laugh it over
with the cat. I'm a soft-hearted boob and I hate to take a sucker, at
that. But accordin' to my dope, that dough of friend Alex's was the
same as in the bank in my name!

Now the bird I had in mind to make me win this bet from Alex was a
pitcher I had on the payroll who's name was Hector Sells. He would of
been just as rotten a ball player if his name had been First Base,
Center Field or Short Stop. He could do everything in the world with a
baseball, with the slight exception of gettin' it over the plate, and,
when he pitched, his main difficulty was keepin' the pill outa left
field. In the seven years he had been stealin' wages from my club his
twirlin' percentage read like the thermometer in Alaska and when he
come to bat, as far as he ever found out, first base was in Berlin. I
put him on the third base coachin' line one afternoon and he tries to
send a runner back to second when the batter triples. I tried this guy
out at every position on the team and he made so many errors that the
official scorers went out and bought addin' machines every time he
appeared in the line-up. If they was anything on earth connected with
the game of baseball that Hector could do, he never showed it to me,
and puttin' a uneyform on him was the same as givin' a blind man a pair
of opera glasses.

Yet with all this, that guy thought he was the greatest baseball player
that ever laid hold of a glove. He not only thought it, he _conceded_
it.

For the past year, Hector had played out the schedule from the dugout,
with the exception of six games he pitched against the Athletics. He
lost an even six. I sent him to every flag station in North America
where they looked on baseball as a game, and Hector would come back at
the end of the season with his suit case jammed full of unconditional
releases. Him and pneumonia was just as easy to get rid of as far as I
was concerned and we started off every season with Hector in our midst.

Three winters in succession I loaned that guy enough dough to set
himself up in busines