Then with a twinkle in his eyes, seeing that Tom by this time was pretty well warmed up, he cut loose a fast one that traveled so swiftly that the eye could scarcely follow it. It landed in Tom’s glove with a report like the crack of a whip, and a roar of laughter went up from the crowd as Tom danced around rubbing his hands.
“Wow!” he yelled. “That one had whiskers on it for fair. Have a heart, Joe. I’m too young to die.”
“Don’t worry about dying, Tom,” piped up Dick Little. “Only the good die young, and that makes you safe for a while.”
“Is that the kind you feed to old Wagner when he comes up to the plate and shakes his hat at you?” asked Ben Atkins.
“It doesn’t matter much what you serve to that tough old bird,” answered Joe grimly. “He lams them all if they come within reach.”
“How fast do you suppose that last ball of yours was traveling anyway, Joe?” asked Ed Wilson.
“Oh, I don’t know exactly,” answered Joe carelessly. “Something over a hundred feet a second.”
A buzz of astonishment went up from the throng and they crowded closer around Joe.
“A hundred feet a second!” ejaculated Sam Berry, who was connected with the railroad. “Why a railroad train traveling at the rate of a mile a minute only covers eighty-eight feet a second. Do you mean to say that that ball was traveling faster than a mile a minute train?”