Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

fa THE BIRD OF PASSAGE. There was silence for a time while Dur- kin ate; then, at the end, when he had sent to the cashier’s desk for a package of ciga- rettes, and had one of them between his lips, he waved his hand to his companion, and Springtime said: “I’m looking for a baseball pitcher.” “So?” said Durkin. “ What kind of a pitcher?”’ “Good one. Minor league stuff.” He outlined the situation that existed at Napoleon, gave him a brief description of Napoleon, but omitted Kitty and the beans. Durkin listened thoughtfully, and at the end was silent until they had left the res- taurant and found a seat near the cannon in the park. Then Durkin, upon whom Springtime’s narrative seemed to have made a profound effect, asked, “ How much is there in that pitching job?” “Fifty and keep. The game comes off in a week or so.” “ Fifty and keep,” said the other medi- tatively, and after a long, thoughtful pause, spread his hands out before Springtime. ““ See those hands?”’ “ Sure I do, and if I were a bull, I would say that they had never done any hard work.” “No; but those two broken fingers came irom baseball.” “ Brom baseball!’ exclaimed Springtime. “ Durk, I always figured you for an Eng- lishman—a duke or something without a belfry to ring in.” “I’ve lived there off and on,” said Dur- kin; “but, boy, I’m a blowed-in-the-glass Yank, and once upon a time I was the cap- tain of a team.” ae Where?” Durkin politely ignored that question, but said: “ It was a pretty good team, too. I’ve gone south with the robins in spring; but I never came back north.” ‘When all this information had pene- trated, and Springtime saw its implications, he was acutely embarrassed. He was bound to Durkin by class loyalty and a sincere admiration for the great man’s qualities. Hobo might be against hobo, but hoboes together against the world, and he felt that Durkin would be justified in expecting him 1 keen over the pitching graft to himself, whether he could win or not. At the same time he felt doubts as to Durkin’s ability to stick, and this job needed some one who could pitch and who would stick, for even if he did not owe an unmixed loyalty to Osborne, he was more or less afraid of dou- ble-crossing the old man. “Gee, Durk,” he said, stick?” Durkin said not a word or made a move- ment to indicate that he had heard; after they had chatted about other things for an hour, he got up and said, “ We'll be drift- ing, son. You may have to cover a lot of ground before you find that pitcher.” Springtime had thought those three days preceding his meeting with Durkin as be- ing a glimpse of Paradise, but they were nothing to the three that came after, when, with the weather still kind, the brakeman even more courteous, and money still in his pocket, he found all his former pleasure doubled by the presence of Durkin. The tall man had an instant apprecia- tion of everything humorous or interesting that ran along with his own. In addition he was the pink of courtesy and kindness in all the little amenities which make hobo life as well as drawing-room life possible. He was thoughtful, unselfish, polite, almost to exaggeration, and Springtime understood how it was that Roller had stood for his laz- iness for so many years. It was worth sup- porting Durkin just to be with him; he paid, not with the sweat of his brow, but the finer coin of his gentility. Deep in his heart Springtime began to feel that he had found his pal—the man with whom he could spend the rest of his days wandering from Bangor to Melbourne. At the end of the third day he had found no one, and he began to be a bit worried. — When he had left Osborne it had seemed the simplest thing in the world to go out and lay his hand on a better pitcher than any that had ever hurled for Napoleon; but he found that for some mysterious rea- son or other baseball players were extreme- ly scarce in the jungles. He found every- thing else, from dry point etchers to invent-— ors of wave machines; but no ball pate c= worthy of the name. his © worry, and at the es®/u)¢ “would you