“But you’re pitching your arm off, boy. Now don’t tell me you’re not. You’re doing too much. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I’m pretty careful of that arm,” laughed Dick. “I watch it and care for it as if it were a baby. I don’t think I’ll injure it, Billings.”
“But you’re doing more than half the pitching for your team. You’re winning the games, too, and I know you’ve got a third-rate bunch behind you.”
Some fellows would have swelled up and looked flattered over a compliment like this, but not so with Dick. Instead of that he gravely protested that he thought the Umpty-ten team very good indeed. Billings grinned but failed to provoke the freshman into the slightest display of amused sarcasm.
“You talk as if you meant it,” said the reporter.
“I do.”
“Impossible!”
“I do,” repeated Dick. “No pitcher can win right along unless he has good backing.”
“Oh, but there are a lot of soreheads who are not playing on your team.”
“I know that, and we’re better off without such fellows. Their jealousies and ambitions make them detrimental to the good of any team they get on.”