"Ball one!" called the umpire.
"Spare him, Phil—don't hit him!" cried Chipper Cooper, moving about nervously.
"There's speed!" came from Sile Crane. "He can't see that kind."
"Get 'em over—please get 'em over, if you can!" entreated Bob Larkins, who had taken a position on the coaching line, near first base.
"All right, Phil," said Roger Eliot quietly and reassuringly, returning the ball. "You've got powder behind them."
Springer's nervousness had returned with redoubled force. He seemed to feel something quivering somewhere within himself, and, having forgotten to get a chew of gum, he suddenly realized that his mouth was dry as a chip. When Roger called for an out, he bent the ball so wide of the plate that Eliot scarcely succeeded in stopping it.
"Oh—dear—me!" whooped Larkins. "He can't find the pan. Take a ramble, Ding; wait and he'll walk you."
To Springer's relief, Eliot did not seem disturbed. Roger signalled next for a straight one, and held up his mitt behind the inside corner of the plate. Doing his best to be steady, Phil responded by sending one over that corner; and Dingley, waiting, heard the umpire call a strike.
"Oh, yes, he'll walk him—not," laughed Cooper. "Let him wait. He'll have a chance to ramble to the bench in a minute."
Phil saw Eliot smile a bit through the meshes of the catching mask, and then, nodding at the signal for a drop, he started the ball high, but gave it the proper twist to bring it shooting down across the batter's shoulders.