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"How long ago?" I says.

"Right after he got out o’ college," says Ike.

"Well," I says, "I should think he’d of learned to write with his left hand by this time. "

"It’s his left hand that was cut off," says Ike; "and he was lefthanded. "

"You get a letter every day," says Carey. "They’re all the same writin’. Is he tellin’ you about a different ball player every time he writes?"

"No," Ike says. "It’s the same ball player. He just tells me what he does every day. "

"From the size o’ the letters, they don’t play nothin’ but double-headers down there," says Carey.

We figured that Ike spent most of his evenin’s answerin’ the letters from his "friend’s sister," so we kept tryin’ to date him up for shows and parties to see how he’d duck out of ’em. He was bugs over spaghetti, so we told him one day that they was goin’ to be a big feed of it over to Joe’s that night and he was invited.

"How long’ll it last?" he says.

"Well," we says, "we’re goin’ right over there after the game and stay till they close up. "

"I can’t go," he says, "unless they leave me come home at eight bells. "

"Nothin’ doin’," says Carey. "Joe’d get sore. "

"I can’t go then," says Ike.

"Why not?" I ast him.

"Well," he says, "my landlady locks up the house at eight and I left my key home. "

"You can come and stay with me," says Carey.

"No," he says, "I can’t sleep in a strange bed. "

"How do you get along when we’re on the road?" says I.

"I don’t never sleep the first night anywheres," he says. "After that I’m all right. "

"You’ll have time to chase home and get your key right after the game," I told him.

"The key ain’t home," says Ike. "I lent it to one o’ the other fellas and he’s went out o’ town and took it with him. "

"Couldn’t you borry another key off’n the landlady?" Carey ast him.

"No," he says, "that’s the only one they is. "

Well, the day before we started East again, Ike come into the clubhouse all smiles.

"Your birthday?" I ast him.

"No," he says.

"What do you feel so good about?" I says.

"Got a letter from my old man," he says. "My uncle’s goin’ to get well. "

"Is that the one in Nebraska?" says I

"Not right in Nebraska," says Ike. "Near there. "

But afterwards we got the right dope from Cap. Dolly’d blew in from Missouri and was goin’ to make the trip with her sister.

V

Well, I want to alibi Carey and I for what come off in Boston. If we’d of had any idear what we was doin’, we’d never did it. They wasn’t nobody outside o’ maybe Ike and the dame that felt worse over it than I and Carey.

The first two days we didn’t see nothin’ of Ike and her except out to the park. The rest o’ the time they was sight-seein’ over to Cambridge and down to Revere and out to Brook-a-line and all the other places where the rubes go.

But when we come into the beanery after the third game Cap’s wife called us over.

"If you want to see somethin’ pretty," she says, "look at the third finger on Sis’s left hand. "

Well, o’ course we knowed before we looked that it wasn’t goin’ to be no hangnail. Nobody was su’prised when Dolly blew into the dinin’ room with it—a rock that Ike’d bought off’n Diamond Joe the first trip to New York. Only o’ course it’d been set into a lady’s-size ring instead o’ the automobile tire he’d been wearin’.