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BUNKER BEAN
231

Bean looked down upon these delayed people with amused sympathy.

Then, astoundingly, his eye fell upon one of the passengers a little aloof from the group about the motorman. He, too, after a last look at the car, seemed to be resolving on that long tramp to the station. He was a sightly young man, tall, heavily built, and dressed in garments that would on any human form have won Bean's instant respect. But on the form of the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen——!!

His mind was at once vacant of all the past, of all the future. There was no more a Breede, male or female, no more directors or shares or jails. There was only a big golden Present, subduing, enthralling, limitless!

"Stop car!" hissed Bean. The car halted three feet from the young man on foot.

"Jump in!" gasped Bean.

"Thanks," said the young man; "I'm going the other way."

"Me, too! I was turning around just here."

The young man hesitated, surveying his interlocutor.

"Well," he said, "if it won't be too much trouble?"

"Trouble!" The word was a caress as Bean uttered it. He pushed a door open, clumsy with excitement, and the World's Greatest Pitcher stepped in to sit beside him.

"Grounds?" asked Bean.

"Yes," said the Pitcher, "if it's convenient."