Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant Part 37

"I am certain you will not object to the young lady I am going to marry, Uncle Jim"----

"Marry!" cried Mr. Lawrence angrily. "Nonsense! You're not going to marry anyone! Here we just make up and you want to start the quarrel all over again. Marry? You young scoundrel! You're going to stay at home with me"----

"Don't say that until you meet her, Uncle Jim," and, putting his arm around Betty Tabor's waist, he said, "Uncle Jim, I want you to meet Miss Betty Tabor, who has just honored me by promising to become my wife."

"Why, bless my heart! Bless my heart!" exclaimed the old man in surprise. "If it isn't the young woman who sat in the box next to me at the game! I fell in love with you, my dear, when you applauded Larry. Marry her? If you don't marry her, you young rascal, I'll cut you off in my will. Not a penny, you understand--not a penny."

He kissed Betty Tabor gallantly while the others laughed and he bowed low over Mrs. Clancy's hand as Kohinoor presented him to the manager and his wife.

"Are you the Mr. Lawrence they call the Lumber King in Oregon?"

inquired Clancy, as he shook hands.

"They call me that out there," said the old man, testily. "Call themselves democratic--then King everyone who makes a few dollars--bah."

"Oh," exclaimed Miss Tabor, in sudden alarm. "Then Larry is rich?"

"Never mind that, sweetheart," he said, consolingly. "We can live on my baseball salary if Uncle Jim cuts us off."

"Cut you off, nonsense!" the old man exclaimed testily. "You'll have all my money if you behave yourself and obey me. Young scoundrel never would obey me."

"I've learned to obey in baseball, uncle," replied Kohinoor seriously.

"Ask Mr. Clancy if I haven't."

"I'm so glad, Larry," said Miss Tabor brightly, "that you asked me before I knew you were going to be rich."

"Young rascal must have learned some sense," growled his uncle. "He picked out just the girl I wanted him to. When I saw you at the game, my dear, I said to myself: 'Now if Larry would only choose a girl like that, I'd make her my daughter.'"

"You're the worst flatterer of them all--Mr.--Lawrence," said the girl, blus.h.i.+ng and laughing.

"You must call me Uncle Jim, my dear," he insisted in his most tyrannical tones. "And understand, Miss, I'm boss of this family."

"By the way, Kirkland," said Technicalities Feehan, who had been busily engaged studying some statistics he had taken from his pocket, "what did you hit the last year you were at Cascade College?"

"Kirkland?" exclaimed Miss Tabor. "Then your name isn't James Lawrence?"

"I forgot," he responded, laughing at her bewilderment. "Your name will be Mrs. James Lawrence Kirkland; I was named for Uncle Jim. How did you find it out?" he added, turning to Feehan.

"I knew it the second day you were with the Bears," replied Feehan. "I have all your records, excepting those of your final year at the university. Did you hit .332 or .318? The records do not agree."

Ten days later, on the night after the Bears triumphantly won the World's Champions.h.i.+p, there was a jolly party in the banquet hall of one of the great hotels. Jimmy McCarthy was giving a farewell dinner to his friends and comrades of the Bear team. The dinner had been eaten, the toasts to the team and its manager drunk, and McCarthy arose.

"Boys," he said, "I'm not going to try to make a speech. I want to thank you all for your kindness to the tramp who came to you when he needed friends. And now my uncle has a little announcement to make which I know you all will be glad to hear."

A round of applause greeted the testy old gentleman as he arose, scolding his nephew for calling upon him. In the ten days that he had traveled with them he had become the idol of the Bears, and he proudly claimed credit for their victories, declared he was their mascot, and called each one by his first name.

"Nothing at all. Just a little matter," he said, testily. "Young rascal shouldn't have mentioned it. All it amounts to is that yesterday I bought Baldwin's stock in this ball club. He's a disgrace to the business. I made him sell out. I'm holding the stock for Clancy. He can have it at the price I paid any time he gets the money.

Just bought it to get that crook, Baldwin, out."

He sat down amid a riot of cheering, while Clancy, who had not been informed of the deal, arose and stammered his bewildered thanks, as he strove to realize that a fortune had been thrust upon him. When the excitement had died down and a toast to Mr. Lawrence had been proposed and drunk standing, Betty Tabor, flushed, and appearing prettier than ever, arose.

"Boys," she said, in her low, steady tones, "I have an important announcement to make, one which, I believe, will please you almost as well as the one we just heard did."

She hesitated and smiled down upon her future husband, who sat beside her.

"Boys," she continued, after a moment, "I have consented to permit Larry to play ball with you next season, if he will allow me to travel with the team at least one trip."

Noisy Norton sprang upon his chair, his gla.s.s held aloft and cried:

"To the bride, the groom and another pennant."

THE END.