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Three days later, at the close of an afternoon's grinding work, the grim old man at the desk looked up as Bean was leaving the room. "S'good game!" "Fine!" said Bean, as he closed the door. But for this reference and one other circumstance Bean might have supposed that Breede had forgotten the day.
However that may be, his next summons to the country place came without undue delay, and it is not at all improbable that Breede fell a victim to what the terminology of one of our most popular cults identifies as "malicious animal magnetism." On this occasion he was not oppressed by those attentions which the flapper and Grandma, the Demon, still bestowed upon him.
The Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Known stood nonchalantly in the box, stooped for a handful of earth and with it polluted the fair surface of a new ball. A second later the ball shot over the plate. The batter fanned, the crowd yelled. All at once Bean was coldly himself. He knew that Breede sat at his right; that on his left was a peculiar young woman.
The telephone rang, but was ignored. "Send it off," he directed Bean above the bell's clear call. "Then c'mon; go ball game. G'wup 'n subway." "Got car downstairs," suggested Bean. "You got your work cut out f'r you; 'sall I got t' say," growled Breede. "'S little old last year's car," said Bean modestly.
Before beginning the transcription of his notes, Bean had to learn the latest telephone news from the ball-ground. During the last half-hour he had inwardly raged more than usual at Breede for being kept from this information. Bulger always managed to get it on time, beginning with the third inning, even when he took dictation from Breede's confidential secretary, or from Tully, the chief clerk.
He arrayed himself in the newest check suit, and an especially beautiful shirt with a lavender stripe that bore his embroidered initials on one sleeve. He thought he would like to face them in his shirtsleeves, and give Breede and the fussy old gentlemen a good look at that lettered arm. He was almost persuaded to don the entirely red cravat, let the consequences be what they might.
He jealously watched the letters Breede answered and laid aside, and the sheaf of reports that he juggled from hand to hand. His hope had been that the session might be brief. There was no clock in the room and he several times felt for the absent watch. Then he tried to estimate the time.
He hadn't remembered a quarter of the delightful contingencies that arise when the right man and woman are wrecked on an island, but he looked up from his plate to find Breede regarding him and his abundant food with a look of such stony malignance that he could eat no more Breede with his glass of diluted milk and one intensely hygienic cracker!
Bean opened the door, but the hall was vacant. Breede grunted and began his progress. It was, perhaps, not more than reasonably vocal considering his provocation. Bean uncovered a typewriter and sat to it, his note-book before him. For a moment he reverted to the island vision.
"'S all for 's aft'noon!" He bit savagely into his unlighted cigar and began to rifle through a new sheaf of documents. Bean deftly effaced himself, with a parting glare at the unlighted cigar. It was a feature of Breede that no reporter ever neglected to mention, but Bean thought you might as well chew tobacco and be done with it.
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