"Blue? You bet they'll be blue when the game is over!"

"Hey, Prescott! What'll you take for the letters on your shirt?"

"Gimme that yellow curl over your forehead? I saw it first."

"Oh, my, don't the Little Boys Blue look sweet?"

In silence the Central players marched by their tormentors. d.i.c.k gazed across the field to see Ted Teall swinging a bat at the home plate.

"Teall!" called d.i.c.k, as he and the others dropped their jackets at the batters' benches.

"h.e.l.lo!" returned Ted. "I'm glad to see that you fellows really had the nerve to come to-day."

"I saw you doing some pretty wild batting, Teall," laughed d.i.c.k Prescott. "That kind of work won't save you when I get started.

Shall I throw you in a few real ones---hard ones---before we get at it in earnest?"

"Go on!" retorted Ted scornfully.

"Oh, I won't hurt you," Prescott promised.

"You bet you won't," boasted Teall.

"He's afraid, even before the game starts," jeered a group of Central Grammar boys. "That's right, Ted. Guard your life."

"Don't be afraid, Teall," d.i.c.k urged tantalizingly. "Trying to hit some of my deliveries will be something like an education for you."

"Bosh!" sneered Teall.

"Then why won't you try a few?"

"I will, if you really think you can throw a ball that will rattle me any," Teall agreed, grinning broadly.

"Go at him, d.i.c.k!"

"Whoop! Show him what a cheap batter he is."

Laughing, balancing a ball in his hands, d.i.c.k glided out on to the diamond.

"Ready, Ted? Just see what you can do with one like this," d.i.c.k mocked.

It was a swift ball, but a straight one. To a batsman of Teall's skill it was not a difficult one to hit. Ted swung his bat and gave the ball a crack that sent it far out into outfield.

"Is that the best you can do?" jeered Ted.

"Oh, I've one or two better than that," replied d.i.c.k, pretending to feel fl.u.s.tered.

Again Prescott sent in a swift one, and once more Teall sent the leather spinning over the field. Hoots and cat-calls from the Souths filled the air. The Central fans began to look a bit uneasy.

What was their champion pitcher doing, to let Teall get away with his deliveries as easily as this?

A third ball d.i.c.k drove in, with the same result as before.

"Say, what you fellows need is practice," leered Ted.

"Look out that I don't catch you yet," mocked d.i.c.k Prescott, bending to scoop up the returning ball from the ground. Then he wheeled like a flash to confront the batsman.

This time, by a quick subst.i.tution, d.i.c.k held the home-made ball.

He twirled it for an instant, then sent it in toward the plate.

"Just---as---easy!" scoffed Ted, whirling his bat, then reaching out for the ball.

Crack! Teall hit it soundly.

Bang! With such force had the batsman struck that he exploded the large torpedo inside the home-made ball. There was a rattling explosion, and Teall, unable to figure, in that first instant, what had happened, sent the bat flying.

"Ow-ow-ow!" yelled startled Ted, leaping up into the air. When he alighted he ran a dozen or more steps as fast as he could go, then halted and looked around him. For an instant Teall's face expressed panic.

Then mocking laughter from hundreds of throats greeted him.

"I knew any little thing out of the ordinary would rattle you,"

smiled d.i.c.k. "Don't lose your nerve. It wasn't anything."

"Just a fresh idiot's attempt to be funny!" growled Teall, his face now red with mortification.

"Laugh, Ted, confound you!" urged Tom Reade. "Laugh! Don't be a grouch."

"What you need, Teall," teased Dave Darrin, "is some nerve tonic.

You ought not to let yourself get into such bad shape that you almost faint when you hit the ball."

For once Ted Teall's ready tongue went back on him. He could think of nothing to say that would not make him look still more ridiculous.

"I guess he'll be good, for one game at least," grimaced d.i.c.k as he turned to his teammates.

Chapter VII

TED TEALL FACES THE STORM

The game had gone into the third inning, with the Centrals retired from the bat and the Souths now in from the field.

In the second inning Greg, backed splendidly by Tom and d.i.c.k, had scored a run for his side---the only run listed as yet.

In this third inning, with South Grammar now at the bat, two men were out, and one on second when Ted Teall stepped to the plate.

"Put a real slam over on 'em, Ted!" shouted a South fan.