As Riley approached, a lean, sallow man, with a hawk-beak nose, rose from the home bench and nodded, holding out a bony hand, which, cold as a dead fish, was almost smothered in the pudgy paw put forth to meet it.
"Hello, Hutch!" gurgled the manager of the Bullies, with a show of cordiality, although he quickly dropped the chilling hand. "How's tricks? See you took a fall outer Fryeburg yistidday."
"Yes, we got away with it," answered the local manager, in a monotonous, dead-level voice, lacking wholly in enthusiasm. "But the 'Brownies' are a cinch; nothing but a bunch of raw kids."
"Uh-huh!" grunted Riley, twisting his thumb into the huge watch chain which spanned the breadth of his bulging waistcoat; "that's right. Still, you didn't have much leeway to spare, did ye?"
"Put it over by one measly run, that's all. Deever's arm went on the blink in the seventh, and the greenhorns came near hammering out a win. Locke managed to hold 'em."
"Who is this Locke? I see he's down to wing 'em for you to-day. Where'd you find him, huh?"
"Don't ask me who he is. I never heard of
