"Well?"
"You've made the claim of having been thinking, but you haven't offered the slightest proof."
"What I was thinking, fellows, was that we are obliged to meet the South Grammar nine on the diamond to-day."
"We're not afraid of them," scoffed Dave.
"No," Dick went on, "but I've an idea that we're up against an ordeal, after a fashion. You all know what a guyer Ted Teall is—-how he nearly broke up our match with the Norths last Wednesday afternoon."
"Ted can't do any guying this morning," declared Greg readily. "If he does, the umpire will rule him out of the game, and that would snap all of Ted's nerve. No; Ted won't guy us to-day."
"But I'll tell you just what will happen to us," Dick offered. "The spectators who come from the South Grammar aren't under the umpire's orders. You may be sure that Ted has posted the fellows from his school on a lot of things that they can yell at us. Oh, we'll get guyed from the start to the finish of the game."
"If they go too far," hinted Dave, "we can thrash some of the funny ones afterwards."
"I shan't feel like thrashing anyone for having a little fun with us," remarked Reade.
"Thrashing wouldn't do any good, anyway," Dick continued. "Besides which, we might just happen, incidentally, to be the fellows that got the worst thrashing if we started anything like that going. I don't object to good-natured ridicule. But the South Grammar fellows may have some things to yell at us that will rattle our play. That's what I want to stop."