“Hold on!” cried the batter. “I want to get one crack at that ball. Give me a show.”
“I have declared you dead,” said the umpire; “so you’ll have to make room for the next man. Drop that bat and take to your hole, you lobster!”
The next man came up and hit the first ball straight at Jack, who did not stop it with his hands, but with the pit of his stomach.
“Judgment!” he gasped. “I have it!”
“That’s right,” said the umpire. “Corbett got it there at Carson City. You’re out.”
“Out?” squealed Jack. “It’s the other man who is out!”
“I tell you that you are out,” insisted the umpire. “Get off the grass.”
And Jack was compelled to make room for another fellow who was ambitious to do some pitching.
“Alas and alack!” he sobbed, as he stood aside. “It is thus we poor mortals get it in the neck!”