Merry looked at his companion sharply, quickly divining what Bart was driving at.
“You’re feeling bad over the loss of that game,” he said. “Well, don’t you think I felt rather sore? If I’d pitched the whole of it there might have been——”
“The pitching did not lose that game, Frank, and you know it.”
“Perhaps not; but——”
“You know, I know, and everybody knows, just where the responsibility falls. Mason lost that game. He let in six runs by dropping those two flies.”
“Two men must have scored, anyhow, even if he had caught them. It would have been great work if he had stopped either runner at the plate.”
“But what if they had? We’d carried off the game, with a score of eight to six. It was the other four scores that beat us. Three of them came in off Starbright’s pitching. Now, you know I have never taken much stock in Mason. Some fools have said it’s because Mason is like me; but that’s not it at all. He hasn’t sand, Merriwell, and it takes sand to play ball.”
“I think you are wrong, Hodge. I believe Mason has plenty of sand.”
But Hodge shook his head grimly.