“I know he was a good man once, but he has had his day.”
Frank smiled confidently.
There was a little preliminary practice, as if it was to be a regular match game. Frank got off his sweater and warmed up in earnest, just the same as he would have done had he been preparing to pitch against Harvard.
The “scrub” took the field first. As they went out scores of students shouted at them sportively, and they were the butt of ridicule.
“Where did you find ’em, Merriwell?” shouted a voice. “They are a lot of flubs!”
Frank laughed easily.
“Wait a little,” he advised, “and these flubs will give you apoplexy.”
He looked his men over to see that they were in proper positions, and then, as Cal Jeffers, Yale’s heavy-hitting center fielder, came up to the plate, he motioned for Gamp to move a little farther back.
This caused some laughter, and a voice cried:
“What do you want to put him back for, Merriwell? He couldn’t catch anything, anyway.”