He folded his arms, an ugly look on his face, and stepped back, while Dick took off his coat and rolled up his right sleeve, exposing an arm of such perfect development that even the man whose place he had taken could not suppress a feeling of envious admiration.
Gardiner picked up a bat and stepped to the plate; the catcher crouched and gave a signal, which Dick recognized as the call for a drop. As the ball left Merriwell’s fingers, it seemed that it would pass above the first baseman’s shoulders. Too late the latter saw it take a sudden downward shoot and plunk into the catcher’s big mitt.
“Gee! that’s a dandy,” Gardiner exclaimed, as Burgess tossed the ball back.
The next one was a beautiful outcurve which cut the corner of the plate, though the batter had not thought it possible for the ball to pass over any part of the pan. He planted his feet firmly, a little frown on his face. Though he knew Merriwell was giving Morrison an object lesson, he did not propose to be fanned by the Yale man if he could help it.
Dick placed his feet and rose on his toes for a moment. Backward he swung, poised upon one pin, his left foot lifted high above the ground. Forward he threw his body with a broad, sharp swing of his arm, and the ball came sizzling over the inside corner of the rubber, Gardiner missing cleanly.
A murmur of astonishment and admiration went up from the little group which stood near the plate. To have their heaviest hitter struck out by the first three balls pitched was something the members of the Forest Hills nine had never expected to see. Gardiner threw down his bat with a little grimace of disgust.
“That’s some pitching,” he said. “I haven’t had that happen to me in many moons. Now, Edgar, suppose you see what you can do.”
But Morrison was walking rapidly toward him from the pitcher’s box, his hands clenched and his face dark.
“You can’t make a monkey out of me,” he snarled. “I’m through.”
Gardiner looked at him in amazement.