ted at the prospect.
Joe's eyes sought Mabel, while Jim's rested on Clara, and neither one of
those young ladies was so obtuse as not to know what the young men were
thinking.

"When do you have to go?" asked Clara, soberly.

"We have to be in Chicago by the nineteenth," answered Joe, "and we'll
have to leave here the day before. To-day's the sixteenth and you can see
for yourself how much time that gives us to stay in Riverside."

"No rest for the wicked," said Reggie, jocularly. "'Pon honor, you boys
have earned a rest after the work you did against the Red Sox."

Clara was very far from her vivacious self as she thought of the coming
separation, but Joe was surprised and the least bit hurt to see how
lightly Mabel seemed to regard it.

"It's too bad, of course," she said, cheerfully, "but we'll have to make
the best of these two days at least. It's a pity, though, that it wasn't
November nineteenth instead of October."

"We could have started a bit later if it were only for the foreign trip,"
explained Jim, "but we're going to play a series of exhibition games
between here and the Coast, and we've got to take advantage of what good
weather there is left. If we can only get to the Rockies before it's too
cold to play, we'll be all right, because in California they're able to
play all the year round."

"My word!" exclaimed Reggie, "I don't see why they don't cut out the
exhibition games altogether. I should think this country had had baseball
enough for one season."

"Not when the Giants and an All-American team are the players," replied
Joe. "The people will come out in crowds--they'll fairly beg us to take
their money."

"And it will be worth taking," chimed in Jim. "Do you know how much money
the teams took in before they reached the coast on their last World's
Trip? Ninety-seven thousand dollars. Count them, ladies and
gentlemen--ninety-seven thousand dollars in good American dollars!" he
added grandly.

"That sounds like a lot of money," said Reggie, thoughtfully.

"And they'll need every cent of it too," said Joe. "It's the only way a
trip of that kind can be carried on. The teams travel in first-class
style, have the finest quarters on the ship, and stay at the best hotels.
In the games abroad there won't be money enough taken in, probably, to
cover expenses. Then the money we've taken in from the exhibition games
will come in handy."

"How many men are going in the two teams?" inquired Clara.