“All right,” Meg laughed, “then I am. And I suppose you’d like to know what. They say,” she smiled whimsically, “that ‘figures won’t lie but liars will figure.’ Well, Goggles may be able to make a perfect mechanical umpire, but he can’t keep some other electrical shark from tampering with it.
“You see—” she leaned forward, eyes gleaming, “you set up your equipment yesterday. During the night some smart boy from Fairfield came over and cut in a switch that would turn half the eyes of old Mr. Umpire off when they wanted them off. That gave Mr. Ump only half sight. And of course they made him half blind every time our team came up. He couldn’t see the balls.”
“But I don’t under—”
“Wait!” Peggy held up a hand. “The switch was by that white post. They’d buried the wires underground two or three inches. When I saw that sub stand there every inning, I guessed there was a reason. So—o, you see,” she laughed, “I took his place.
“He’d been throwing the switch off and on with his toe. Couldn’t while I was there. Bye and bye I discovered the switch, figured out where the wires ran, then chopped one off with that spade. After that old Mr. Ump could see very well all the time.”
“Meg!” Doug exclaimed, “You’re a whizz!”
“Oh I don’t know about that,” Meg laughed. “One thing I do know. The score wouldn’t have been so terrible if they hadn’t tried to cheat. Which all goes to show that the fellow that cheats can’t win.”
“Correct!” Johnny laughed. “Now how about another lemonade?”
“Well—” Doug sighed a happy sigh as he rose to leave a half hour later, “we got our thousand dollars and a little left over. So the old ball ground is safe, at least for a while.”
“Wasn’t the ‘Prince’ gr—and today!” Meg’s tone was rich and mellow. “Isn’t he mysterious!”