“Another double-shoot!” exploded Ready, in disgust. “Say, stop it, will you! You’re the only pitcher in the country who can throw the ball, so I don’t care to practise batting against it. Give me just the plain, ordinary curves.”
“All right,” laughed Frank. “I was trying it simply to see if I had good control and command of it. Next one will be of the ordinary kind.”
It was an in shoot, but Jack hit it a good crack, and joyously cried:
“Safe hit! Oh, me! oh, my! Wasn’t that clever of me?”
“You’d never got a hit like that off him in a game, and you know it,” said Hodge, while Merry was after the ball. “He’s the greatest pitcher who ever came out of a college in this country.”
“Admitted, my boy,” nodded Jack. “And he has a reputation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He’s a wonder, and everybody knows it.”
Again Dick Merriwell felt a strange thrill of satisfaction and pride, and to himself he unconsciously whispered:
“He’s my brother!”
CHAPTER XX.
WINNING HIS WAY.
What he had seen and heard that day wrought a change in Dick Merriwell. Although he had never witnessed a game of baseball, he began to feel an intense longing to see one. He pictured it in his mind, and the picture was far from correct, but it served to add to his growing desire.