"Call the game, Mr. Ump.—make 'em play ball!"
"Batter up! Forfeit the game to Ballard, Umpire!"
"Lend 'em Ballard's bat-boy-to make a full nine!"
Captain Butch Brewster, his honest countenance, as a moving-picture
director would express it, "registering wrathful dismay," lumbered toward
the Ballard Field concrete dug-out, in which the Gold and Green players
had entrenched themselves, while from the stands, the Ballard cohorts
vociferated their intense impatience at the inexplicable delay.
"We have got to play," he raged, striding up and down before the bench.
"The game is ten minutes late now, and the crowd is restless! And here we
have only eight 'Varsity players, and no one to make the ninth—not even
a sub.! Oh, I could—"
"That brainless Skeet Wigglesworth!" ejaculated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.,
who, arrayed like a lily of the field, reposed his splinter-structure on
the bench with his comrades. "In some way, he managed to miss that train
from Baltimore! They didn't come on the noon C, N. & Q. train, and there
isn't another one until night. My directions were as plain as a German
war-map, and it beats me how Skeet got befuddled!"
Gloom, as thick and abysmal as a London fog, hovered over the Bannister
dug-out. On the concrete bench, the seven Gold and Green athletes, Beef,
Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, with Team Manager T. Haviland
Hicks, Jr., stared silently at Captain Butch Brewster, who seemed in
imminent peril of exploding. Something probably never before heard of in
the annals of athletic history had happened. Bannister College, about to
play Ballard the big game for the State Championship, had lost a short-stop
and five substitutes, in some unfathomable manner, and it was impossible
to round up one other member of the Gold and Green baseball squad. True, a
hundred loyal alumni were in the stands, but only bona fide students, of
course, were eligible to play the game, and—the Faculty ruling had kept
them at old Bannister!
"Here comes Ballard's Manager," spoke Beef McNaughton, as a brisk,
clean-cut youth advanced, a yellow envelope in hand. "Why, he has a
telegram. Do you suppose Skeet actually had brains enough to wire an
explanation?"
"Telegram for Captain Brewster!" announced the Ballard collegian, giving
the message to that surprised behemoth. "It was sent in my care—collect,
and the sender, name of Wigglesworth, fired one to me personally, telling
me to deliver this one to Captain Butch Brewster, and collect from Team
Manager Hicks—he surely didn't bother to save money! I've been out of
town, and just got back to the campus; of course, the telegrams could not
be delivered to anyone but me, hence the delay."
Big Butch, thanking the Ballard Team Manager, and assuring him that the
charges he had paid would be advanced to him after the game, ripped open
the yellow envelope, and drew out the message. Like a thunder-storm
gathering on the horizon, a dark expression came to good Butch's
countenance, and when he had perused the lengthy telegram, he transfixed
the startled and bewildered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., with an angry glare: