"Hey, you big wart! The bush for yours!"
But the umpire thus unflatteringly described and assigned was obdurate, the run did not count, and the game went on. However, it was won in that inning by the combination of two more safe hits, and the checked paeans rang their fill. If there was a heart in all that great amphitheater not beating to the tune of the forty thousand, it must have been some unfortunate outlander who could only watch, reserving his own delirium until some more fortunate era beneath more friendly stars.
But at last, when all was over and the great crowd reluctantly dissolved, swarming the diamond, Smith and Miss Maitland sought the exit in silence.
"When it puts one in such intimate touch with forty thousand of your fellow beings," said Smith, reflectively, "it seems worth while, now and then, to be what is commonly termed a low-brow."
"Is it really worth while," asked Helen, "to be anything else?"
CHAPTER XI
If Mr. Edward Eggleston Murch had had nothing to do but attend the meetings of the various boards of which he was a director, his time would still have been reasonably well employed and he would have enjoyed an income sufficient at least to keep him in cigars of the standard to which his eminence entitled him. Mr. Murch's private secretary held a position requiring quick-wittedness and suavity in no common degree. Hardly a day went by that the ring of the phone did not serve as preamble for some such colloquy as this:
"Hello. Mr. Murch's office?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Murch in?"