Goggles’ fingers trembled as he threw on an electric switch, then pressed the button. And well they might tremble for Irons O, instead of facing the batter and doing his plain duty, let out a defiant squeal, turned half about, wound up and let fly at the astonished second baseman who, taken off his guard, was struck squarely on the chest and knocked over like a policeman with a bullet through his heart. Instantly pandemonium broke loose. Goggles could not hear himself think for the wild tumultuous noise.
CHAPTER XIV
THE STEEL-FINGERED PITCHER
Next moment Goggles found himself experiencing one of the tragic moments of his young life. In a moment of confidence and enthusiasm he had agreed to direct his mechanical man, Irons O, while he pitched a nine inning game of baseball, and now before a crowd of three thousand or more, old Irons O, who had always been reliable in the past, had turned squarely about on the first pitch and had all but sent the second baseman to the hospital with a baseball in his heart. What was the answer?
“Someone’s been fooling with him,” Hop Horner shouted as he came running up. “Here! Give me the screw driver. That’s it. Now the wrench.”
“Time out!” a big voice roared, “Time out!” It was Big Bill Tyson. Everyone roared with delight; that is, everyone but those who were interested in the youthful inventor’s success. Good old Professor George did not laugh. Instead, he crowded forward to ask, “Anything I can do here boys? Anything at all?” As if a professor who had taught Latin all his life could do anything with a mechanical man! All the same it made Goggles feel good inside. A friend at a time like this—well that was something.
“Wires all twisted up,” Hop was grumbling. “Somebody messed ’em up.”
For fifteen minutes the two boys worked feverishly. Perspiration streamed down their faces. Their hands were black and oily, their knees trembling. “Hundreds of dollars gone,” Goggles was thinking, “hundreds gone if we fail. Hope for the baseball park gone perhaps.” Still Irons O would not swing his arms in a proper manner.
The crowd was getting out of hand. Some were swarming on the field. In one corner, led by a small dark man, a group was chanting in a maddening manner: “We want baseball! We want baseball! We want Irons O! We want Irons!”
It was in the midst of this uproar that Goggles felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find himself looking into the friendly smiling face of a man wearing an aviator’s helmet. “He’s one of those men from the big plane,” he thought to himself.
“Look!” the stranger was saying, “Isn’t that wire, the short one with a pink thread in its insulation—isn’t it out of place?”