game.

His ingratiating manners soon made him a favorite with the women of the
party also, and he spared no pains to deepen this impression.

Reggie liked him immensely, largely, no doubt, owing to the hints that
Braxton, which was the stranger's name, had dropped of having aristocratic
connections. He had traveled widely, and the names of distinguished
personages fell from his lips with ease and familiarity.

"How do you like the new fan, Joe?" Jim asked, a day or two later.

"I can't say that I'm stuck on him much," responded Joe. "He seems to be
pretty well up in baseball dope, and that in itself I suppose ought to be
a recommendation, to a ball player especially, but somehow or other, he
doesn't hit me very hard."

"I think he's very handsome," remarked Mabel, with a mischievous glance at
Joe, and that young man's instinctive dislike of the newcomer became
immediately more pronounced.

"He seems very friendly and pleasant," put in Clara. "Why don't you like
him, Joe?"

"How can I tell?" replied her brother. "I simply know I don't."

CHAPTER XX

IN MIKADO LAND

But if Braxton sensed the slight feeling of antipathy which Joe felt for
him, he gave no sign of it, and Joe himself, who wanted to be strictly
just, took pains to conceal it.

Braxton had a fund of anecdotes that made him good company, and the
friendship that Reggie felt for him made him often a member of Joe's
party.

"Fine fellow, that Mr. Matson of yours," he remarked one afternoon, when
he and Reggie and Mabel were sitting together under an awning, which the
growing heat of every day, as the vessel made its way deeper into the
tropics, made very grateful for its shade and coolness.

"Indeed he is," remarked Mabel, warmly, to whom praise of Joe was always
sweet.

"He's a ripper, don't you know," agreed Reggie.

"Not only as a man but as a player," continued Braxton. "Hughson used to
be king pin once, but I think it can be fairly said that Matson has taken
his place as the star pitcher of America. Hughson's arm will probably
never be entirely well again."

"Joe thinks that Hughson is a prince," remarked Mabel. "He says he stands
head and shoulders above everybody else."

"He used to," admitted Braxton. "For ten years there was nobody to be
compared with him. But now it's Matson's turn to wear the crown."

"Have you ever seen Joe pitch?" asked Mabel.

"I should say I have," replied Braxton. "And it's always been a treat to