"I'll pitch and Ed Kerr'll catch," Langridge announced, as if that settled it. And it was noticeable that Backus did not make a protest, though he was as good a catcher as was Kerr. "Will you pitch for us, Parsons, me lad?" asked Bricktop with just a trace of rich Irish brogue. "Sure and I heard what ye did, me lad, the night of the clapper." "Well, that was mostly luck, I guess," replied Tom modestly, "though I'd like the chance to pitch now." "Sure, then, an' you'll have it," replied the Irish lad with a twinkle in his honest blue eyes. "Come on, fellows. We're last at the bat." "Hold me down, somebody!" exclaimed Dutch Housenlager as he turned a hand spring and came down so close to Molloy that the former captain was nearly sent over. "I'm feeling like a two-year-old." "That's all right, Dutch, me lad," exclaimed Bricktop, relapsing into a broader brogue as his feelings came uppermost. "This isn't a stable, though, and we can dispense with the horse play until after the game if you can accommodate yourself to the exigencies of the occasion," and he spoke much after the manner of Dr. Churchill, for Bricktop, in spite of the fact that he was a senior, "grave and reverend," liked fun and his joke. "If you will kindly resume the upright stature befitting a human being," he went on, "you may try to stop whatever balls come in the direction of shortstop, for there's where ye'll play." "All right," answered Dutch good naturedly. "I'm agreeable, my fair captain. But would you mind keeping your hat on? When the sun strikes your red-gold locks it dazzles my eyes." "Go on wit' your blarney!" exclaimed Molloy, making a punch at Housenlager, who skilfully ducked it. The diamond was in fine shape, for it had been cut and rolled and the base lines marked off in readiness for the opening of the season. The grass was like velvet and the clean, fresh green, contrasted with the brown earth of the diamond proper, the long white lines, the new bases and the level field made a picture that rejoiced the heart of every lad. "Wow! isn't it great?" cried Tom. "And the smell! Do you smell the green grass, Sid, and the earth, and--and the baseball smell? Isn't it great?" "Cheese it!" cried Phil Clinton with a laugh. "You'll be spouting poetry next." "I wish I could," returned Tom a little more soberly. "I never get out on a ball field but I want to orate something like Thermopylæ or Horatius at the Bridge. The fever of the game gets in my blood." "There is something in that," admitted Phil. "Oh, it's a great game. There's none greater except football, and when I see the gridiron marked off and hear the 'ping' of somebody's boot against the pigskin my heart begins to thump and I catch my breath and want to take the ball to batter down a stone fence and make a touchdown." "Bravo!" cried Sid. "You're as bad as Tom." "Quit talking and get to practice!" exclaimed a voice at the rear of the lads, and they turned to see Langridge.