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Well, we finally gets to Indianapolis, and we was goin’ from there to Cincy to open. The last day in Indianapolis John come and ast me how I’d like to change roomies. I says I was perfectly satisfied with Larry. Then John says:

"I wisht you’d try Elliott. The other boys all kicks on him, but he seems to hang round you a lot and I b’lieve you could get along all right. "

"Why don’t you room him alone?" I ast.

"The boss or the hotels won’t stand far us roomin’ alone," says John. "You go ahead and try it, and see how you make out. If he’s too much for you let me know; but he likes you and I think he’ll be diff’rent with a guy who can talk to him like you can. "

So I says I’d tackle it, because I didn’t want to throw John down. When we got to Cincy they stuck Elliott and me in one room, and we was together till he quit us.

III

I went to the room early that night, because we was goin’ to open next day and I wanted to feel like somethin’. First thing I done when I got undressed was turn on both faucets in the bathtub. They was makin’ an awful racket when Elliott finally come in about midnight. I was layin’ awake and I opened right up on him. I says:

"Don’t shut off that water, because I like to hear it run. "

Then I turned over and pretended to be asleep. The bug got his clothes off, and then what did he do but go in the bathroom and shut off the water! Then he come back in the room and says: "I guess no one’s goin’ to tell me what to do in here. "

But I kep’ right on pretendin’ to sleep and didn’t pay no attention. When he’d got into his bed I jumped out o’ mine and turned on all the lights and begun stroppin’ my razor. He says:

"What’s comin’ off?"

"Some o’ my whiskers," I says. "I always shave along about this time. "

"No, you don’t!" he says. "I was in your room one mornin’ down in Louisville and I seen you shavin’ then. "

"Well," I says, "the boys tell me you shave in the middle o’ the night; and I thought if I done all the things you do mebbe I’d get so’s I could hit like you. "

"You must be superstitious!" he says. And I told him I was. "I’m a good hitter," he says, "and I’d be a good hitter if I never shaved at all. That don’t make no diff’rence. "

"Yes, it does," I says. "You prob’ly hit good because you shave at night; but you’d be a better fielder if you shaved in the mornin’. "

You see, I was tryin’ to be just as crazy as him—though that wasn’t hardly possible.

"If that’s right," says he, "I’ll do my shavin’ in the mornin’—because I seen in the papers where the boys says that if I could play the outfield like I can hit I’d be as good as Cobb. They tell me Cobb gets twenty thousand a year. "

"No," I says; "he don’t get that much—but he gets about ten times as much as you do. "

"Well," he says, "I’m goin’ to be as good as him, because I need the money. "

"What do you want with money?" I says.

He just laughed and didn’t say nothin’; but from that time on the water didn’t run in the bathtub nights and he done his shavin’ after breakfast. I didn’t notice, though, that he looked any better in fieldin’ practice.