"Now I can roast you," Nan was saying, archly. She had switched back to
her favorite baseball vernacular. "You pitched a swell game last
Saturday in Rochester, didn't you? Not! You had no steam, no control,
and you couldn't have curved a saucer."
"Nan, what could you expect?" was the cool reply. "You sat up in the
stand with your handsome friend. I reckon I couldn't pitch. I just
gave the game away."
"Whit!--Whit!----"
Then I whispered to Milly that it might be discreet for us to move a
little way from the vicinity.
It was on the second day afterward that I got a chance to talk to Nan.
She reached the grounds early, before Milly arrived, and I found her in
the grand stand. The Rube was down on the card to pitch and when he
started to warm up Nan said confidently that he would shut out Hartford
that afternoon.
"I'm sorry, Nan, but you're way off. We'd do well to win at all, let
alone get a shutout."
"You're a fine manager!" she retorted, hotly. "Why won't we win?"
"Well, the Rube's not in good form. The Rube----"
"Stop calling him that horrid name."
"Whit's not in shape. He's not right. He's ill or something is wrong.
I'm worried sick about him."
"Why--Mr. Connelly!" exclaimed Nan. She turned quickly toward me.