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"He won’t sing no more. "

But Elliott swelled up like a poisoned pup.

"Won’t I?" he says. "I’ll sing all I want to. "

"You won’t sing in here," says the clerk.

"They ain’t room for my voice in here anyways," he says. "I’ll go outdoors and sing. "

And he puts his clothes on and ducks out. I didn’t make no attemp’ to stop him. I heard him bellowin’ ‘Silver Threads’ down the corridor and dawn the stairs, with the clerk and the dick chasin’ him all the way and tellin’ him to shut up.

Well, the guests make a holler the next mornin’; and the hotel people tells Charlie Williams that he’ll either have to let Elliott stay somewheres else or the whole club’ll have to move. Charlie tells John, and John was thinkin’ o’ settlin’ the question by releasin’ Elliott.

I guess he’d about made up his mind to do it; but that afternoon they had us three to one in the ninth, and we got the bases full, with two down and Larry’s turn to hit. Elliott had been sittin’ on the bench sayin’ nothin’.

"Do you think you can hit one today?" says John.

"I can hit one any day," says Elliott.

"Go up and hit that lefthander, then," says John, "and remember there’s nothin’ to laugh at. "

Sallee was workin’—and workin’ good; but that didn’t bother the bug. He cut into one, and it went between Oakes and Whitted like a shot. He come into third standin’ up and we was a run to the good. Sallee was so sore he kind o’ forgot himself and took pretty near his full wind-up pitchin’ to Tommy. And what did Elliott do but steal home and get away with it clean!

Well, you couldn’t can him after that, could you?Charlie gets him a room somewheres and I was relieved of his company that night. The next evenin’ we beat it for Chi to play about two weeks at home. He didn’t tell nobody where he roomed there and I didn’t see nothin’ of him, ‘cep’ out to the park. I ast him what he did with himself nights and he says:

"Same as I do on the road—borrow some dough same place and go to the nickel shows. "

"You must be stuck on ’em," I says.

"Yes. " he says; "I like the ones where they kill people—because I want to learn how to do it. I may have that job some day. "

"Don’t pick on me," I says.

"Oh," says the bug, "you never can tell who I’ll pick on. "

It seemed as if he just couldn’t learn nothin’ about fieldin’, and finally John told him to keep out o’ the practice.

"A ball might hit him in the temple and croak him," says John. But he busted up a couple o’ games for us at home, beatin’ Pittsburgh once and Cincy once.

V

They give me a great big room at the hotel in Pittsburgh; so the fell
ers picked it out for the poker game. We was playin’ along about ten o’clock one night when in come Elliott—the earliest he’d showed up since we’d been roomin’ together. They was only five of us playin’ and Tom ast him to sit in.

"I’m busted," he says.

"Can you play poker?" I ast him.

"They’s nothin’ I can’t do!" he says. "Slip me a couple o’ bucks and I’ll show you. "

So I slipped him a couple o’ bucks and honestly hoped he’d win, because I knowed he never had no dough. Well, Tom dealt him a hand and he picks it up and says:

"I only got five cards. "

"How many do you want?" I says.