"Nan, what could you expect?" was the cool reply. "You sat up in the stand with your handsome friend. I reckon I couldn't pitch. I just gave the game away."
"Whit!—Whit!——"
Then I whispered to Milly that it might be discreet for us to move a little way from the vicinity.
It was on the second day afterward that I got a chance to talk to Nan. She reached the grounds early, before Milly arrived, and I found her in the grand stand. The Rube was down on the card to pitch and when he started to warm up Nan said confidently that he would shut out Hartford that afternoon.
"I'm sorry, Nan, but you're way off. We'd do well to win at all, let alone get a shutout."
"You're a fine manager!" she retorted, hotly. "Why won't we win?"
"Well, the Rube's not in good form. The Rube——"
"Stop calling him that horrid name."
"Whit's not in shape. He's not right. He's ill or something is wrong. I'm worried sick about him."
"Why—Mr. Connelly!" exclaimed Nan. She turned quickly toward me.