“It is too bad,” nodded Steele. “I’d enjoy having you.”
“Without doubt,” said Blessed. “I would add immensely to the gayety of the aggregation. I’m generally about as funny as a funeral.”
Tucker was pleased when he learned beyond doubt that he was to be one of the party. Steele took them in his car, and soon they were at the curb in front of the lodging house on York Street.
“I’ll get my things and come back here,” said Rob Claxton, as he sprang from the car.
Thirty minutes later the big touring car was bearing them out of the city.
“It’ll certainly be fine to get out into the country, where we can gambol with the little lambkins,” laughed Tucker. “I need it. My! but wasn’t that a lovely throw I made to you, Dick? I had a spasm when I realized what I’d done. Didn’t think you’d ever touch it, but you raked her in with one paw. Say, how long is your arm? I swear you reached eleven feet into the air for that ball!”
“Please don’t talk about errors, suh,” entreated Claxton. “I’d like to forget that awful mess I made.”
“Kates sure pitched a good game,” observed Buckhart. “But there was one time I thought he had gone to the bowwows.”
“That game reminds me of the last one I played in before coming to college,” said Tucker. “The finish was just about as sensational. We had the other fellows going up to the seventh inning, when they got after our pitcher and bumped him. In the ninth inning they needed one run to tie, and two to win, and they had the bases filled. It was their last turn to bat, and two men were out. I was playing center field. Up came the heaviest batter on their team, and he slammed a long fly out into my garden. The ground out there was awfully soft in spots, and when I started for that fly one of my feet got stuck in a hole so that I couldn’t pull it out to save my neck. There was the ball coming down just about six feet beyond my reach, and me held fast by one hoof. I tell you it was awful. Perspiration literally started out on my face in drops as big as gooseberries. But I got the ball.”
“How did you do it, suh?” asked Claxton curiously.