“Twinkle your Trilbies!” he howled, his eyes bulging. “Dust along the chalk mark! Scurry through the atmosphere! Take second.”
Bruce got the ball and snapped it to Merry.
Roden had reached second in safety, and the crowd awoke, for at last it seemed that the Outcasts had done something.
Yet these two bags had been made on Ready’s error, no hit having been secured off Frank.
On the bleachers Bob Gowan woke up and wheezed forth a cheer.
“Here is where we start!” he gurgled. “I knew it was sure to happen!”
“Oh, rot!” said Mike Grafter. “It was a great accident, and you know it, Gowan. They haven’t touched Merriwell for a hit, and they may not.”
“They’ll touch him up now,” asserted Gowan. “He’ll go to pieces as soon as there is a runner on a base. These youngsters go to pieces easily.”
“Bet you even money the next man don’t reach first,” proposed Grafter.
“Go you for a hundred!” promptly said Gowan.