“Oh, me! oh, my!” cried Wiley. “How could you be so careless, Jack? I fear your reputation will sink into ignominy. At least, you could have shut your eyes and fanned once. You did not even agitate the atmosphere with your wand.”

“You seem to be agitating it altogether too much with your tongue,” flung back Ready, as he retired disconsolately to the bench.

Morgan stepped out to take his place.

“Who is this sedate youth?” inquired the sailor. “To me his classic countenance is strangely unfamiliar. I wonder if he will pass away in a trance, like his predecessor.”

Mike Grafter had turned on his son as Ready was declared out.

“What do you think of that, boy?” he demanded. “That fellow didn’t seem to know what he was standing up there for.”

“He did appear doped,” admitted Wallace; “but I think this one will wake up.”

He was right, for Morgan smashed the first ball delivered. It hummed along the ground in the direction of Wiley. The sailor leaped for it and it struck his hands, bouncing out. Like a cat springing on a mouse, Wiley pounced on the ball, caught it up and whistled it across the diamond in time to put Dade out at first.

“Too easy to get it the first time,” he said. “In order to show my superb style, I had to drop it and pick it up again. Bat them all to me. It’s the easiest way you can get out.”

Buck Badger, grim and sturdy, strode forth to the plate.

“A gent from the wild-and-woolly, unless I have been incorrectly informed,” said Wiley. “Whoop! Yi, yi, ye-ee! Yow! Notice the coyotelike melody of my voice. Give him a slow one.”

“About like this, eh?” said O’Neill, as he delivered a “dope” ball.

Badger had noted the speed of the pitcher, and he struck too soon.

“One strike!” called the umpire.

“Behave! behave!” exclaimed Wiley. “Why, he really tried to hit it before it left your hand, O’Neill.”

“Confound that fellow!” grated Hodge. “He’s getting on my nerves.”

“Don’t let him do that,” advised Frank. “It’s a part of his game. He always tries to worry the opposite side.”

Buck had better luck with the second ball, for he sent a little Texas Leaguer over the infield and easily reached first.

“What do you think of that?” cried the sailor. “O’Neill, you’re getting careless. You make me blush for you. Note the rosy color that suffuses my dimpled cheeks.”

As Merry picked out his bat and walked to the plate he was given a round of applause.

“Ahoy there, my old college chump!” hailed the sailor. “Waft an energetic one in this direction and permit me to demonstrate my dexterity by placing my diligent digits upon it.”

Frank seemed to obey, for he smote the ball full and fair on the trade-mark and sent it sizzing through the air straight at the speaker. Wiley seemed to have no more than time to put up his hands. The ball struck them and bounded off toward second base. Roden went for it as Badger came down the line. He could not get it in time to tag the Kansan, but he made a sharp throw to first and Frank was declared out.

“Score an assist for me!” cried Wiley. “I think I’ve lost a mitt, but I want to be credited with an assist. I’ll never ag’in invite him to bat the ball in my direction.”

“Why didn’t you dodge it?” cried a spectator.

“I didn’t have time,” confessed the Marine Marvel, as he designated himself.

Mike Grafter had his face screwed up in a dozen hard knots.

“They got one hit, but it didn’t amount to anything,” he said. “I’ll wager something the Outcasts do better than Merriwell, son?”

“If I had any money left, I’d go you, dad,” said Wallace. “I thought you had good sporting blood. You seem to have a bad case of frosty feet.”

“Can you blame him?” wheezed Gowan.

“Oh, they didn’t do so bad after the first man,” declared Wallace. “The others hit the ball.”

“Only one of them hit it anywhere, and that was an accident.”

“It was more of an accident than anything else that Merriwell didn’t get a safe one. He nearly took the hands off that rattle-tongued chap at short.”

Merriwell entered the box, and Creel, the centre fielder, smiling and confident, walked out to bat.

At the very outset, Hodge called for Frank’s new curve.

“Oh, he’s going to deliver the salivered sphere!” cried Wiley, as he saw Frank moisten the ball. “Hit one of those and it will travel at the rate of a mile a second.”

“Cease thy idle prattle, cap’n,” implored Ready, who was in position near third. “You are giving the tympanum of my ear a sensation of ennui.”

“Hey?” gasped the sailor. “What’s that? Ong wee? Is that proper pronunciation? I thought it was enn-you-eye. Ong wee! That sounds good to me. I’ll use it at the first opportunity.”

Frank delivered the ball. It swept downward from his hand toward the inside of the plate, but curved and swept upward and outward, crossing the outside corner.

Creel had looked for the usual drop of the spit ball, and he struck under.

“Strike one!”

The batter looked surprised. He knew the ball had taken some kind of a queer shoot, but he did not know just what had happened.

“Hit it where you missed it, Creel, old boy!” urged Wiley. “Look out for the double-shoot. He’ll hand one up in a minute, and you will have an opportunity to demonstrate the ease with which we can project it to yonder fence.”

Frank pitched again and tried the other sweep.

The ball seemed to start toward the outside of the plate. Suddenly it swept upward and inward, and again Creel missed.

“Strike two!”

Creel gasped.

“What’s that he’s throwing?” he muttered.

“Oh, hit the ball!” chuckled Hodge. “It’s easy enough!”

“I’ll hit the next one!” growled Creel.

“Bet you don’t.”

“I will if I swing at it.”

“Bet you don’t.”

“Don’t talk to that catcher, Tip,” commanded Hurley sharply.

Creel was silenced. He set his teeth, gripped his bat and waited. At the same time, although ready to strike, he more than half expected Frank would “waste” one or two balls.

Merry saw the fellow was ready to swing if the ball came over. Again he delivered it a trifle wide, but it swept in and upward, being caught by Hodge almost directly behind the batter’s shoulder. In fact, it seemed to pass under Creel’s arm as the latter swung at it.

“You’re out!” announced the umpire.

“I’d like to know what sort of a curve he used on me!” muttered Tip Creel, as he reseated himself on the bench. “It had a mighty queer twist.”

Hurley was watching closely.

“It wasn’t the double-shoot Wiley has been teaching us to hit,” he said.

“If it was,” said Creel, “Merriwell throws it entirely different from Wiley.”

“Look here, cap’n,” demanded Swatt, “have you been deceiving us?”

“Not on your autograph;” answered the sailor. “He has not yet promulgated the double-shoot through the sunny atmosphere. Perchance I made a mistake in admitting to him that we intended to bat it with extreme vigor the moment he passed it out to us. But linger yet a while and I prophesy that he will hand it forth.”

Marcey, the third baseman, now came up. He did not attempt to hit the first ball pitched, for it seemed too wide. It swept in over the outside corner, however, and the umpire, who had a good eye and knew his business, declared it a strike.

Marcey flung down his bat, sprang onto the plate and glared at the umpire.

“What’s that?” he snarled.

“Rotten! rotten!” howled a man on the bleachers, who sat in such a position that he could not tell to save his life whether the ball came over the plate. “Put him out! Get a new umpire! Put him out! He’s roasting you! I’ve got some money on this game, and I want to see a square deal.”

“Shut up!”

“Sit down!”

“Choke off!”

“Keep still!”

“Go die!”

These and various other cries came from the crowd, the most of whom knew the umpire.

The umpire ordered Marcey back into position. The batter grouchily picked up his bat and prepared to strike, muttering sullenly all the while.

Frank proceeded to whistle over a high one that was declared a ball. Then he used a “dope,” at which Marcey struck too soon.

“He’s no fool of a pitcher,” muttered the captain of the Outcasts. “I’m afraid he’s going to be a hard man to hit safely.”

This opinion he did not express to the others.

Marcey was finally fooled with Merry’s new curve, striking out.

“Come on, Bimm!” urged Hurley. “Put us into the game. Don’t try to knock the cover off the ball. That pitcher is easy enough if you don’t swing your head off trying to hit.”

Bimm was one of the best batters on the team, even though he was a change pitcher. He stepped out fully determined to show the crowd that it was not such a difficult thing to hit Merriwell safely.

“I’d give something to get a two-bagger or better,” he thought.

Still he did not try for a long hit. Instead of that, he shortened his hold on his bat and swung to meet the ball squarely, if he could.

He fouled the first one.

“Feeling of him, Bimm, my boy!” cried Wiley. “You’ll find him soft and easy. Swat her to the so’west corner of the inclosure and steer your course around the diamond.”

Bimm did his best, but, like the two before him, he fell a victim of Merriwell’s skill and struck out.

Hurley looked round for McGann as he started for the field. He was beginning to think that Merriwell would prove a hard nut to crack.

On the bleachers Wallace Grafter was smiling with satisfaction and his father was feeling decidedly better.

“What do you think about it now, dad?” asked the young man.

“Can he keep that up, son?” asked the politician.

“Of course he can’t!” wheezed Gowan. “Those men of ours are great batters, and they’ll fall on him hard before long. When they do, you’ll see him go up in the air.”

“How about that, son?” inquired Grafter.

“Don’t you worry, dad,” advised Wallace. “I didn’t urge you to bet on the Merries without knowing what I was doing. I’ve found out all about Frank Merriwell. Mat O’Neill is a rattling good pitcher, but he’s met his match in Merriwell.”

Bob Gowan laughed, holding onto his fat sides.

“All boys are alike,” he said, “and your son is no more than a boy, Grafter. He has lots to learn.”

“All boys are not fools,” retorted Wallace. “I fancy that before the game is over to-day you’ll confess that you have learned something.”

Wallace was just a trifle disrespectful in his language. He was the young city man of the day, up-to-date, breezy, and assertive.

Mat O’Neill realized that Merriwell had made the best record in the first inning, yet he was confident that the youth could not keep it up. O’Neill had picked up his baseball in the rough-and-ready school of the independent and minor league teams, and he thought little of college pitchers, as a rule. Merriwell he considered in the class of the best college pitchers. Of course he was forced to admit that some college twirlers panned out well, for he knew what Clarkson, Matthewson, and others had done; but he thought them exceptions, and he believed Merriwell would be playing in one of the big leagues if he was fast enough.

Still O’Neill’s pride had been touched, and he felt a desire to demonstrate that he, too, could strike out three men in succession, if he desired. This desire led him to begin the second inning with the determination to do his handsomest.

Bart Hodge was the first man to face him. Hodge had a grim face and businesslike air.

O’Neill handed him a high inshoot. Bart struck and missed.

“That’s the woods!” cried Wiley. “Whisker cutters for him. He never finds ’em.”

Following this two balls were called. Then O’Neill caught Bart on a drop.

Hodge seemed anxious, so the pitcher tried to pull him on a wide outcurve.

Bart let it pass.

“Three balls!” declared the umpire.

“Oh, you vill haf to got der plate ofer der pall, Misder Bitcher!” cried Hans Dunnerwurst from the bench.

O’Neill decided on a fast rise past the batter’s shoulders, and his control was perfect.

Nevertheless Bart met the ball fairly, giving it a fearful crack.

O’Neill muttered an exclamation of chagrin.

Out on a line went the ball. Wiley made a wild leap into the air, but he could not reach it by two feet, at least.

“That’s the high sign!” cried the sailor. “My arm was too short. I’ll have to use my patent arm-stretching attachment to get those.”

“The fielders will have to use their leg-stretching attachment to get them,” laughed Dade Morgan, as he ran down to the coaching line. “Take second, Bart!”

Hodge obeyed, easily reaching second base before the ball could be fielded into the diamond.

“Now, Gamp—now!” urged Morgan. “It’s just as easy. O’Neill will have his troubles to-day.”

“I pelief you vos correctness, Dady!” cried Dunnerwurst, as he joined Morgan. “His troubles vill haf him to-day. Mofe dot pag avay from, Partley! Got a good sdart und make a roppery. You vos der pest ropper in der punch. Id peen easiness vor a pase to steal you.”

“These boys seem to bat some, Mr. Gowan,” observed Wallace Grafter. “If they ever get to bunching ’em on O’Neill they will put him to the stable.”

“One hit in an inning doesn’t count,” gurgled Gowan. “I’ve noticed that O’Neill knows how to scatter the hits.”

“Son,” said old man Grafter, “when it comes to baseball, you know a thing or two. I’m satisfied now that I have a chance for my money, and so I won’t kick if I lose it.”

“All right, dad,” smiled Wallace. “I’m thinking we’ll both win our bets.”

Joe Gamp, long, gangling and awkward, stood up to the plate.

“Get back a little!” sharply commanded O’Neill.

“What fuf-fuf-for?” innocently inquired Joe.

“I’ll show you what for!” grated O’Neill, as he sent a ball over with burning speed, keeping it so close that it barely missed the tall chap.

“Let him hit you,” cried Wiley. “You’ll never know it, and your funeral will occur to-morrow.”

Gamp seemed alarmed, for he stood off from the plate; but as O’Neill delivered the next ball, he stepped up to it.

Just as Joe had expected, the ball was over the outside corner.

Gamp hit it, having stepped near enough to reach it with ease.

O’Neill had tried to fool him, but, instead of that, he had fooled O’Neill.

The hit was a safe one to right field.

Hodge went flying over third, being sent home by both Morgan and Dunnerwurst.

“Agitate your Trilbies, Boliver!” yelled Wiley. “Get your dainty fingers on the horsehide and hurry it hitherward! There is something doing!”

Bimm did his level best to cut off the score. Getting the ball, he made a splendid throw to the plate, but Hodge slid home safely.

Swatt, who was sometimes called “Crackson,” on account of his batting, realized that he could not get Hodge, so he lined the ball down to Roden, hoping to catch Gamp, who had pranced toward second on the throw.

“Slide, Choe!” screeched Dunnerwurst.

Joe slid.

Roden put the ball onto him, but Gamp lay with his hand on the bag, and he was declared safe.

Old man Grafter laughed heartily.

“Gowan,” he said, “the boys are playing all round your great Outcasts.”

Gowan had nothing to say.

“This is criminal!” cried Wiley. “They should be ashamed! I don’t believe they have any shame in them! I’ll die of heart disease if this merry-go-round isn’t checked right away.”

“What’s the matter, Mat?” asked Hurley.

“Nothing,” answered the pitcher savagely.

“They’re hitting you.”

“I’ll stop it.”

“You’d better. We can’t stand this.”

Although he was angry, O’Neill was not rattled. He pitched with greater skill when Browning faced him. The big fellow made a number of fouls, but O’Neill finally struck him out.

Starbright followed.

“Another Goliath,” said Wiley. “But the giants are easy. This one will fall like the other.”

Starbright tried hard for a hit. Like Browning he made several fouls. Finally he put one into the air, and Crackson Swatt got under it and smothered it.

“Their last chance to do further damage has evaporated,” announced Wiley, as Harry Rattleton stepped out. “This fellow will fall like golden grain before the shining sickle of the reaper. He never made a real hit in all his life.”

Harry had little chance against the clever work of O’Neill. At the same time, he let none of the good ones pass without swinging. It did no good, for in the end he struck out.

The Merries had secured one run in the second inning.