A FLATTERING INVITATION.
Jim Phillips, his reputation firmly established as the best college
pitcher in the East, and, since his defeat of the Michigan team, in the
whole United States, was hardly surprised when, the day after the
conference between Parker and the two sophomores, of which, of course,
he knew nothing, he was asked by the captain of the team of the New
Haven Country Club to pitch for that nine against the Boston Athletic
Association nine the next day.
Jim, like many other Yale athletes, had been elected an honorary member
of the country club, and so was eligible to play on any of its teams.
But he had not taken the time to make use of the club since his
election, as he had been busy in practice for Yale teams. His first
impulse was to decline outright Captain Hasbrook’s request, and he even
started to do so. But Hasbrook pleaded so hard that Jim finally agreed
to reconsider and to consult Dick Merriwell on the subject.
“I’m under Mr. Merriwell’s orders, of course,” said Jim, “and I can’t do
anything of this sort without his permission. Frankly, I don’t think he
will let me play for you. This game with Harvard is pretty important,
you know, and we aren’t going to have an easy time with them, by any
means.”
“I’ve thought of that, of course,” said Hasbrook. “I’m an old Yale man
myself, you know, and I played on the team when Merriwell was captain.
So I think I may have some weight with him. I’ll try, anyhow. And I
really think it will do you good to run up against that Boston bunch.
They’ve got a lot of old Harvard men on their team, and I’ve heard that
there will be one or two of this year’s team. They won’t have this man
Briggs that they’re counting on so heavily, but they’re better off than
we are in pitchers. Holmes, the only man I could count on to do any
really good pitching, has hurt his arm, and that’s why I’m so keen about
getting you. Winston’s a member of the club and I suppose there’ll be no
difficulty about getting him to pitch, if you can’t help us out. But I’d
rather have you, naturally, because old Winston, while he’s willing
enough, wouldn’t last three innings against that bunch of sluggers
that’s coming down from Boston.
“They’ve got to look on this game every year as a sort of alumni game
between Yale and Harvard, you know, and, of course, they’ve got a lot
more men to draw on than we have—Boston being big enough to swallow New
Haven and a couple of other towns our size. So they’ve been beating us
for the last three years.”
Jim, as he had told Hasbrook, had little hope of being allowed to play.
But he was anxious enough to do so. He remembered Hasbrook well as a
member of the good-government party that had helped the Yale students
mightily when the city had tried to stop the cheering at Yale Field, and
the idea of giving Harvard men a chance to crow, even if they were out
of college, was displeasing to him.
Brady, it seemed, had received a similar invitation from Hasbrook. He
came, soon after the country club man had left Jim, to tell him about
it. He, it seemed, had accepted, making only the provision that
Merriwell’s consent would have to be obtained. But Bill was a horse for
work, and there was not the same reason for saving him that tended to
make it unlikely that Jim would be allowed to play.
They went to see Merriwell together, Jim’s anxiety to play being greatly
increased when he found that Bill Brady would be his catcher. The idea
of pitching to a strange catcher had been one of the things that had
prompted his first refusal.
Hasbrook was an old friend of Dick Merriwell’s, and when the two
sophomores found the universal coach they learned that he already knew
their errand. He seemed a little doubtful.
“I think the game would do you both lots of good,” he said. “This Boston
team is made up altogether of old Harvard varsity men, and they’ve been
playing baseball on a system at Cambridge for fifteen years. When you
play one Harvard team, you know them all. That’s one reason I was
willing to consider this matter. But I’d rather have had the game come
at least a week before the big match. I’m only afraid you’ll overdo
things, Jim.”
“I won’t let him work himself to death, Mr. Merriwell,” promised Brady.
“He’ll do just what I signal him, you know, and I’ll see that he saves
his arm. We don’t have to take chances in this game, because it doesn’t
really matter whether we win or not. If we can win, without hurting
ourselves, why we’d like to do it, of course. But every one will
understand that we can’t take chances for the country club when we’ve
got to play for Yale against Harvard. Even Hasbrook and the others out
at the club wouldn’t like that. They’d rather lose themselves than see
Yale licked, if it came to a choice.”
“All right, then,” said Dick. “I’ll give my consent—on one condition. If
you feel tired during the game, Jim, and as if you were putting any sort
of a strain on your arm, you’ve got to promise to make Hasbrook take you
out, no matter what the score is. And I count on you, too, Brady. If you
see that Jim is hurting himself, you’ve got to see that he gets out of
the game. You may be able to tell better than he can himself. I’d be at
the game, but I’ve got some important business to attend to in New York,
and it won’t be possible for me to get there. That’s why I’m hesitating
so much. Winston can go out to the game with you, and if Jim has to go
out, he can take his place. I think he’d do better than Hasbrook
expects, too. He’s improved a lot since the beginning of the season, and
I’ve seen a lot of college teams that would be glad to have him.”
“I guess that’s right,” said Brady. “But then any man who knows how to
curve a ball at all would turn into a good pitcher with you to coach
him, Mr. Merriwell.”
The news of Merriwell’s permission to the two sophomore stars to form
the battery for the country club against the famous amateur team from
Boston, caused great excitement. The country club members were
overjoyed. They saw a chance to get revenge for the defeats of the last
few years. With quiet confidence, they made up a purse and sent it
posthaste to Boston, to be bet on their team, with its powerful
reënforcements. The newspapers printed the story. And from Cambridge
came rumors that every effort was being made to induce the Harvard coach
to allow Briggs to pitch for the Bostonians.
Dick Merriwell shook his head when he heard that.
“I hope he won’t,” he said. “If I’d thought there was any chance that
Briggs would pitch for them, I wouldn’t have consented to let Jim go in.
It would be too much like letting the Yale-Harvard game be played ahead
of time.”
But those rumors were speedily set at rest. There was no chance for
Briggs to play, and, moreover, as the Boston men saw it, they needed no
undergraduate pitcher to give them the victory. For Hobson, the famous
Hobson, who had pitched Harvard to a championship in three successive
years while he was still in college, was back in America from a trip
abroad, and in the very pink of condition for any sort of a game. And he
had been promptly drafted by his old club.
“Now you will have your work cut out for you, Jim,” said Dick Merriwell,
with a smile. “I know Hobson well, of old, and if you beat him, you
certainly need have no fear of Briggs or any one else that’s in college
now. Also, if he beats you, you needn’t feel disgraced. You know his
record, of course.”
Out at the country club, Jim Phillips and Brady practiced for the first
time with Hasbrook and the other men who made up the team, arranging
signals and other details for the game. A new batting order had to be
made up, too, and Hasbrook, who knew how formidable a batter Brady was,
put him in as fourth man, with Jim Phillips to follow him. A great many
members, going out to play golf or tennis, decided to watch the baseball
practice instead, and the big porch of the country club was deserted.
Almost deserted—not quite, for in a corner, hidden by some plants, sat
Parker and his new sophomore friends, Carpenter and Shesgren.
“It’s worked, so far,” said Parker, drawing in luxuriously on a straw
that protruded from a long, fizzy glass. “He walked right into it, and
even his friend Merriwell couldn’t see the danger. I don’t blame him. He
thinks our little friend Phillips is all he should be. He’ll have quite
a shock when he wakes up and finds out.”
“What have you got against Merriwell, Parker?” asked Carpenter.
He, like almost every other Yale man, both liked and respected the
universal coach, who had certainly done great things for the blue since
his Alma Mater had called him back to take general charge of all her
athletic teams; supervising all of them, and coaching the more important
teams himself. Carpenter was unable to understand why Parker, himself an
athlete, and, therefore, better able to understand than most of his
fellow students just how much the universal coach had done for Yale,
should be so bitter against Merriwell.
Parker was more genial than usual with his sophomore allies, whom, as a
matter of fact, he secretly despised. He had been drinking iced drinks
all afternoon, and they had had a distinct effect upon him.
“Why, I’ll tell you, Carpenter, my boy,” he said. “I’m likely to be
captain of the football team here next fall, see, and I want to be the
real captain. Look at old Tom Sherman. What’s he got to say about the
baseball team? It’s all up to Merriwell. Same way with Murchison. He was
elected captain of the crew. Has he got anything to do with the way the
crew is run? Not so you could notice it. It’s Mr. Richard Merriwell who
dictates everything.”
“Well, that’s because they let him do it, isn’t it?” asked Shesgren.
“They haven’t any choice,” said Parker. “Every one here thinks he’s just
about right on everything. He can’t do anything wrong. If he falls down
hard once, and gets shown up in this business, he may have still enough
to keep on being universal coach, but he won’t be a dictator, the way he
has been. Anyhow, Phillips won’t captain the baseball team, and that
will reduce Merriwell’s pull a little.”
He finished his drink and ordered another.
“Now, then,” he said, “are you two friendly with Phillips?”
“Hardly,” said Carpenter. “He simply lets us alone. He started to act as
if he wanted to be friendly with me once, but I soon saw that he was
doing it just to make it easier for him to beat me out in the work, and
I dropped him.”
“Same here,” said Shesgren. “He talks a lot of sickening rot about how
all the men in the class ought to stick together and be friendly—and
then goes and does mean things behind our backs. That’s the only way he
ever gets a good stand in his studies. Why does he try to hog
everything, anyhow? We don’t mind how prominent he is in athletics. We
came here to get good degrees. My father promised me a thousand dollars
if I was one of the first two men in the class—and the way things are
going now I won’t be able to get that. Phillips and Brady work together
all the time, and just because they are way up in athletics the faculty
favors them all the time.”
“Never mind all that,” said Parker. “Have to drop your personal feelings
for a while if you want to get square. I want you two fellows to go back
to New Haven this evening and call on Phillips. Make any excuse you
like. Say you came in to talk over your work or something. Be chummy
with him. Make him ask you to come again.”
The two sophomores protested violently. “Why should they?” they asked.
But Parker had returned to his stern and superior manner. He had had
enough to drink to make him ugly, and his overbearing manner so
frightened the sophomores, since they were weaklings, physically, no
matter how bright they might be mentally, that they gave in.
“You go do as I say,” growled Parker. “Then come to my room and tell me
how you got along. I’ll tell you then what to do next. Got a little
business to attend to here.”
He shooed them away, and then sat down again to wait until a stranger
appeared, looking around to see if he were observed.
“Safe enough,” said Parker. “Been waiting for you.”
“Are you sure you are right in this?” asked the other. “It doesn’t seem
like Phillips at all to do a thing like that. I must say I was surprised
when you told me.”
“Well, you’ve got proof, haven’t you?” asked Parker. “He refused to play
at first, didn’t he? Then, after I saw him, he agreed. He’s out here
now, practicing with the team. You go back on your agreement and see how
long he stays out here.”
“I don’t like it a bit,” said the other. “However—we want to win, and I
don’t see any other way to do it. I’ll stick to the agreement. I guess
your plan is the safest. I’ve got to have some sort of a receipt, of
course, in case there’s any trouble. But that will be the simplest. It
won’t attract any attention, and I don’t see how it could get out,
anyhow.”
“No,” said Parker. “I don’t see how it can get out unless one of us
splits—and I don’t suppose you’re going to do that, are you?”
“I should say not,” exclaimed the other, so fervently that Parker
laughed, which made the man who had just handed him a letter start, as
he noticed for the first time that Parker, owing to the drinks he had
taken, was far from being himself.
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