_Runs earned_--Calumets, 0; Catalpas, 4. _Base hits_-- " 5, " 6. _Errors_-- " 0, " 3. _Umpire_, Mr. Thomas Walsh. _Time of game, two and a half hours._ CHAPTER XII. AFTER THE VICTORY. "The boss says he would be obliged to you if you would make less noise." It was a tall and red-faced young man who brought this message to the Catalpa Nine, as they were gathered in the room of Captain Hiram Porter, in their lodging-house, after the great match game. Al Heaton had hurried to join the boys, as soon as he had sent to Catalpa his despatch announcing the result of the contest in the most glowing terms consistent with the rate of telegraph tolls and the needed conciseness of a despatch. All hands were in that flow of animal spirits that might have been expected from nearly a dozen young fellows who are elated over a great victory and who have laboriously repressed their jubilation until they are alone. "There! I told you, boys, that your skylarking would bring up the landlord. Oh, I say, Neddie, quit your fooling. You can't throw 'The Lily,' if you try all night; and we are making such a racket that the whole house is disturbed." This was Captain Porter's admonition. "Besides," said Larry Boyne, who was panting with the unwonted exertion of boosting Charlie King over the headboard of the bedstead, where Charlie was determined he would not go, "besides all that, it's time for you and me, Hi, to get ready to go out to dinner." "Where are you two fellows going to dinner?" demanded half a dozen voices at once. "Are you going to throw off on us in that way?" Captain Hiram explained that he and Larry had accepted an invitation to take dinner with Judge Morris, with whose family Mr. Heaton and Albert were staying during the progress of the games in Chicago. The Morrises, he added, lived on the north side of the river, and he and Larry should be ready to start, instead of "cutting up" to show how tickled they were with their recent victory. "But 'twas a famous victory," quoted Larry, "for all that, and I would just as soon stay with the boys and celebrate it as go out to dine with Judge Morris, who, they say, is a heavy swell." "I happen to know that Miss Alice Howell and her friend Miss Ida are stopping with the Morrises, Larry," said Ben Burton, with an unpleasant leer, "and you and Hiram will be in clover; so you can afford to shake us until the next game." Larry grew very red in the face at this, and there was a dangerous gleam in Hiram Porter's eye as he noted the ill-natured scowl on Burton's countenance. He restrained himself, however, and said, "Why do you continually harp on the Judge's daughter, Ben? The young lady is from our own town, and she is more interested in the success of the Catalpas than some of its members, I reckon; at least, I think so, judging from appearances."