, you should have seen me when I got aboard the train! I
was at high pressure, and there was absolute danger of an explosion. I
just had to open the safety valve and blow off. And I find you as calm
as a clock! Oh, Frank, it is too much--too much!" and Harry pretended to
weep.

"Go it, old man," he smiled. "You will feel better pretty soon."

"I don't know whether I will or not!" snapped Harry. "It was a sheastly
bame--I mean a beastly shame! That game was ours!"

"Not quite. It came very near being ours."

"It was! Why, you actually had it pulled out! You held those fellows
down and never gave them a single safe hit! That was wonderful work!"

"Oh, I don't know. They are not such great batters."

"Gordon found them pretty fast. I tell you some of those fellows are
batters--good ones, too."

"Well, they didn't happen to get onto my delivery."

"Happen! happen! happen! There was no happen about it. They couldn't get
onto you. You had them at your mercy. It was wonderful pitching, and I
can lick the gun of a son--er--son of a gun that says it wasn't!"

"I had a chance to size every man up while Gordon was pitching, and that
gave me the advantage."

"That makes me tired! Of course you had time to size them up; but you
couldn't have kept them without a hit if you hadn't been a dandy
pitcher. Your modesty is simply sickening sometimes!"

Then Harry pranced up and down the room like am infuriated tiger, almost
gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth.

"If I didn't think I could pitch some I wouldn't try it." said Frank,
quietly. "But I am not fool enough to think I am the only one. There are
others."

"Well, they are not freshmen, and I'll tell you that."

"I don't know about that."

"I do."

"All right. Have it as you like it."

"And you batted like a fiend. Twice at bat and two hits--a two-bagger
and a three-bagger."

"A single and a three-bagger, if you please."

"Well, what's the matter with that? Whee jiz--mean jee whiz! Could
anybody ask for anything more? You got the three-bagger just when it was
needed most, and you would have saved the game if you had come to the
bat in the last inning."

"You think so, but it is all guesswork. I might have struck out."

"You might, but you wouldn't. Oh, merry thunder! To think that a little
single would have tied that game, and we couldn't get it! It actually
makes me ill at the pit of my stomach!"

The expression on Harry's face seemed to indicate th