on a roller towel, then went back to the car. Jane in the meantime had spread a neat repast of sandwiches and cake, made by her own hand, on the seat beside her. Pop sat down with a sigh on the other side and dipped his gnarled hand into the sandwiches. Old man and young girl ate their modest lunch together in silence for a few minutes.
While pouring out the coffee from a thermos bottle, Jane observed, "I saw Speedy this morning before he went to work. He's getting along fine, he said."
"He always says that with a new job, and then the first thing you know he up and loses it."
"Oh, he's always all right," Jane said, "as long as he keeps his mind off baseball and doesn't let it interfere with his work."
"That's the trouble with Harold—he's got baseball on the brain."
"I guess he must inherit it—from his father. Haven't you ever heard from Mr. Swift, granddad, since that letter before he left for South America?"
"No—not for the last eight years."
They were both silent for several minutes, thinking of the strange circumstances that had made Speedy Swift practically an orphan at the age of twelve in the great city of New York.
Jane had often heard the story from her grandfather of how he and Tom Swift, Harold's father, had first met and of their subsequent career together. For Pop Dillon was none other than the Pop Dillon who, those among my readers who are on the shady side of thirty and real baseball fans
