Then you chose to cut me deliberately?" he asked.

"Don't be foolish, Larry," she replied. "A girl must think of herself
and I did not choose to have my companions learn that I was acquainted
with persons in that--profession, do you call it?"

"Well, if you are ashamed of my profession"--he said hotly.

"Nonsense," she interrupted him. "I simply did not desire to have
people see me speak to a person who earns his living sliding around in
the dirt on his face. That is what I wanted to see you about. What
new prank is this? Are you seeking notoriety?"

"I am earning my living," he said. "Baseball is the only thing I could
do well enough to make money."

"Earn your living?" The girl's surprise was sincere. "You haven't
broken with your Uncle Jim, have you?"

The girl's eyes grew wider with surprise, and her tone indicated
consternation.

"I have--or, rather, he has--cut me off," the boy explained rather
sullenly. "I tried to find a job--thought it would be easy here in the
East, but no one wanted my particular brand of ability, and I tried
something I knew I could do."

"Then you--then your uncle"--the girl's consternation was real, and she
hesitated. "Then our engagement"----

"I thought that was broken before I left," he replied. "You said you
wouldn't marry me at all if I told Uncle Jim."

"I thought you would be sensible," she argued. "Everyone at home
thinks you are sulking somewhere in Europe because of a quarrel with
me. Why didn't you write to me?"

"After our last interview it did not seem necessary," he said.

"Oh, Larry," the girl said, pouting, "you've spoiled it for both of us.
If you had done as I wanted you to do everything would have been happy,
and now you humiliate me and all your friends by earning your living
playing with a lot of roughs."

"They're a pretty decent lot of fellows," he responded indignantly.

"Why did you do it?" she demanded, on the verge of tears from
disappointment and annoyance.

"I quarreled with Uncle Jim," he admitted. "I told him I wanted to
marry you, and he told me that if I continued to see you he'd cut me
off."

"And you lost your temper and left?" she concluded.

"Just about that," he confessed. "He told me I was dependent upon him,
and said I'd starve if I had to make my own living. Of course, I could
not stand that"----

"Of course," she interjected stormily. "I told you that he hated all
our family, but that if we were married he wou