Page:The Rival Pitchers.djvu/68

58 "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," likeliked [sic] 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.