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4 "Whoop! there's a strike for you, Tom!" murmured Dick.

"Do you call that knocking the ball over the river?" demanded Songbird, dryly.

"Here's a case where a straw shows how the ball blows," misquoted Stanley Browne.

"Hi! hi! what do you mean by smashing my hat!" roared Dudd Flockley, the student who had been thus assaulted, "Who did this, I demand to know?"

"I knocked the ball—but I didn't aim for your hat," answered Tom. And as Dudd Flockley held up the damaged hat he could not help but grin.

"You did it on purpose, Tom Rover!" growled the dudish student "You needn't deny it!"

"Nonsense, Dudd!" put in Stanley. "He wanted to make a home run—he wasn't aiming at your hat at all."

"I know better!" answered the other student, bitterly. "Say, Tom Rover, it's up to you to buy me a new hat," he added.

"All right, if that's the way you feel about it," answered Tom, "You get the hat and I'll pay for it. But I didn't smash it on purpose, Dudd."

"That hat cost me five dollars, and I don't know where to get one like it," growled the dudish pupil.