The High School Pitcher Part 35

The effect upon young Ripley was electrical. He sprang to his feet, his face dramatically expressive of a mingling of intense astonishment and hurt pride.

"Dad," he gasped, "how can you ask me such questions?"

"Because I want the answer, and a truthful one," replied the lawyer, coolly. "Will you oblige me with the answer? Take your time, and think deliberately. If you have made any mistakes I want you to be fair and honorable with me. Now, what do you say, sir?"

Fred's mind had been working like lightning. He had come to the conclusion that it would be safe to bluff his denial through to the end.

"Father," he uttered, earnestly, in a voice into which he tried to throw intense earnestness and sincerity, "I give you my word of honor, as a Ripley, that I know nothing more about the missing money than you have just told me."

"You are sure of that, Fred?"

"Sure of it, sir? Why, I will take any oath that will satisfy-----"

"We don't want any perjury here," cut in the lawyer, crisply, and touched a bell.

The folding doors behind them flew open with a bang. As Fred started and whirled about he beheld a stranger advancing toward them, and that stranger was escorting---Tip Scammon.

The stranger halted with his jailbird companion some five or six feet away. The stranger did not appear greatly concerned. Tip, however, looked utterly abashed, and unable to raise his gaze from the floor.

"With this exhibit, young man," went on the lawyer, in a sorrowful tone, "I don't suppose it is necessary to go much further with the story. When I first began to miss small sums from the safe I thought I might merely have made a mistake about the sums that I had put away. Finally, I took to counting the money more carefully.

Then I puzzled for a while. At last, I sent for this man, who is a detective. He has come and gone so quietly that probably you have not noticed him. This man has had a hiding place from which he could watch the safe. Early last evening you took the key and opened the safe---robbed it! You took four five-dollar bills, but they were marked. This man saw you meet Tip Scammon, saw you pa.s.s the money over, and heard a conversation that has filled me with amazement. So my son has been paying blackmail money for months!"

Fred stood staggered, for a few moments. Then he wheeled fiercely on Scammon.

"You scoundrel, you've been talking about me---telling lies about me," young Ripley uttered hoa.r.s.ely.

"I hain't told nothing about ye," retorted Tip stolidly. "But this rich man's cop (detective) nabbed me the first thing this morning. He took me up inter yer father's office, an' asked me whether I'd let _him_ explore my clothes, or whether I'd rather have a policeman called in. He 'splained that, if he had to call the poor man's cop, I'd have to be arrested for fair. So I let him go through my clothes. He found four five-spots on me, and told me I'd better wait an' see yer father. So I'm here, an'

not particular a bit about having to go up to the penitentiary for another stretch."

"It hasn't been necessary, Fred, to question Scammon very far,"

broke in the elder Ripley. "That'll do, now, Haight. Since Scammon volunteered to give the money back, and said he didn't know it had been stolen, you can turn him loose."

The detective and Tip had no more than gone when Lawyer Ripley, his face flushed with shame, wheeled about on his son.

"So you see, Fred, what your word of honor the word of a Ripley---is sometimes worth. You have been robbing me steadily. How much you have taken I do not know as I have not always counted or recorded money that I put in the safe."

Fred's face had now taken on a defiant look. He saw that his father did not intend to be harsh, so the boy determined to brave it out.

"Haven't you anything to say?" asked the lawyer, after a brief silence.

"No," retorted Fred, sulkily. "Not after you've disgraced me by putting a private detective on my track. It was shameful."

That brought the hot blood rus.h.i.+ng to his father's face.

"Shameful, was it, you young reprobate? Shameful to you, when you have been stealing for weeks, if not for months? It is you who are dead to the sense of shame. Your life, I fear, young man, cannot go on as it has been going. You are not fitted for a home of wealth and refinement. You have had too much money, too easy a time. I see that, now. Well, it shall all change!

You shall have a different kind of home."

Fred began to quake. He knew that his father, when in a mood like this, was not to be trifled with.

"You---you don't mean jail?" gasped the boy with a yellow streak in him.

"No; I don't; at least, not this time," retorted his father.

"But, let me see. You spoke of an engagement to do something this afternoon. What was it?"

"_I was_ to have pitched in the game against Cedarville High School."

"Go on, then, and do it," replied his father.

"I---I can't pitch, now. My nerves are too-----"

"Go on and do what you're pledged to do!" thundered Lawyer Ripley, in a tone which Fred knew was not to be disregarded. So the boy started for the door.

"And while you are gone," his father shot after him, "I will think out my plan for changing your life in such a way as to save whatever good may be in you, and to knock a lot of foolish, idle ideas out of your head!"

Fred's cheeks were ashen, his legs shaking under him as he left the house.

"I've never seen the guv'nor so worked up before---at least, not about me," thought the boy wretchedly. "Now, what does he mean to do? I can't turn him a hair's breadth, now, from whatever plan he may make. Why didn't I have more sense? Why didn't I own up, and 'throw myself on the mercy of the court'?"

In his present mood the frightened boy knew he couldn't sit still in a street car. So he walked all the way to the Athletic Field.

He was still shaking, still worried and pale when at length he arrived there.

He walked into the dressing room. The rest of the nine and the subs were already on hand, many of them dressed.

"You're late, Mr. Ripley," said Coach Luce, a look of annoyance on his face.

Outside, the first of the fans on the seats were starting the rumpus that goes under the name of enthusiasm.

"I---I know it. But---but---I---I'm sorry, Mr. Luce. I---I believe I'm going to be ill. I---I know I can't pitch to-day."

So Coach Luce and Captain Purcell conferred briefly, and decided that Dave Darrin should pitch to-day.

Darrin did pitch. He handled his tricky curves so well that puny Cedarville was beaten by the contemptuous score of seventeen to nothing.

Meanwhile, Fred Ripley was wandering about Gridley, in a state of abject, hopeless cowardice.

CHAPTER XXI

d.i.c.k IS GENEROUS BECAUSE IT'S NATURAL

"Say, will you look at Rip?"

No wonder Harry Hazelton exploded with wonder as he turned to Dan Dalzell and Greg Holmes.

In this warmer weather, the young men loitered in the school yard until the first bell.