"I—er—I—it slipped before I knew it!" stammered the dudish youth.
"It was the easiest kind of a fly to catch."
"Was it?"
"Certainly it was. You were going to do such big things, and here you go and get badly rattled the first thing!" continued Joe, bitterly.
"Humph! if that's the way you're going to talk I won't play any more!" grumbled Augustus De Vere. "You pitched the ball and let him hit it!"
"I don't deny that, but you ought to have made more of an effort to catch it than you did."
"Put him off! Put him off!" came in a chorus from the side of the field.
"I—I guess I won't play any more," said Augustus. "The sun makes my head ache." And he turned and hurried for the bench. A minute later he disappeared and that was the last seen of him during that game.
"Teddy, go down and cover leftfield," said Joe. "And don't you drop any flies."
"Not on yer necktie!" cried the Irish lad. "If I do, you can duck me in the lake be the heels fer it!" And off he scampered, his freckled face on a broad grin.