“Am I? Ask me! I am their mainstay and support. My fielding is about nine hundred and ninety-nine per cent. and my batting a trifle better than five hundred per cent. I was too fast for the Concord team of the New England League, and so they had to let me go. You see the other players didn’t have any chance to shine with me in the game. I played all round them. Not only did I fill my own field at shortstop, but I often gamboled out into the extreme gardens and picked flies and line drives right out of the fingers of the fielders. I covered all the sacks from the initial corner round to the home plate, and often I backed up the catcher. The populace stood aghast at my strenuosity, and the players became jealous and pea-green with envy. “These envious individuals formed a combine against me. They put their caputs together—caput is French for head—they put their caputs together and formed a combine. They decided to quit in a body unless I was released. The manager had no alternative. He pleaded with them with tears in his eyes and his fists doubled up, but they would not hearken unto reason, and so he was compelled to release me with honors. I immediately received offers from Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, and Oshkosh. But I decided to throw my fortunes in with the noble Outcasts, and here I am. “I’m sorry for you, Merry, old boy, but you haven’t a show with me in the game against you. Your double-shoot will not save you on this salubrious afternoon. You will remember that I acquired a spasm of the double-shoot myself, and I have had the boys batting against it for the past four days. Every man on the team can hit the double-shoot with his eyes shut. Just hand it up to them and regret it to the end of your tempestuous career.” “So you are the chap who has been training them to bat against me? I heard some one was doing it.” “I confess with all due humility and abnegation—abnegation is a good word, but I don’t know what it means—I confess that I am the guilty party. I had to do it. You see we haven’t been beaten thus far in our seething career, and we don’t propose to have our immaculate record sullied by defeat. The boys knew I could hand out the double-shoot. When they learned that the game with your team had been arranged, they led me forth like a lambkin to the slaughter and bade me promulgate the sphere through the atmosphere after the manner in which you are wont to do. Then they took their little bats and learned to hit it. I warn you in advance that they can connect with the ball even though you make it travel like a writhing snake through the ozone. It will grieve my tender heart to see you batted all over the lawn, Merry; but I fear exceedingly that such will be your fate.” “What do you think of that?” exclaimed Hodge, who had never entertained any great liking for Wiley. “He has been teaching them to bat your pet curve, Frank.”