There followed a pause in the progress of the game while Harvard's pitcher and her captain tried to convince the umpire that Lowe had not touched second base in his journey toward home. In that interim the little band of Erskine players and substitutes gathered together and cheered, with the rain falling into their wide-open mouths, until the Harvard stand applauded vigorously.
"Four to nine!" yelled Knox. "We can beat them yet!"
But King, with desperate purpose written eloquently over his face, went to bat and ingloriously fouled out to third-baseman, and the half was over. Erskine never came near to scoring again, although, now that the ice was broken, every man felt capable of doing wonderful things, and tried his best to accomplish them. The difficulty was with the Harvard team, and notably the Harvard pitcher; they objected. But if Erskine was not able to add further tallies to her score, she, at least, held her opponents down to two more runs, Gilberth pitching a remarkable game, and what had looked for a time like an overwhelming defeat resolved itself into a creditable showing for the Purple.
Jack didn't get into the game for an instant, nor, in fact, did any of the substitutes. But, as he had scarcely hoped to do so, he was not greatly disappointed. After the game was over the team went back to Boston inside and outside a stage-coach, laughing, joking, cheering now and then, and, on the whole, very well pleased with themselves. Hanson didn't see fit to dampen their enthusiasm by reminding them of the faults which had been plentifully in evidence, but reserved his cold water for the next day. They had dinner at a hotel. In the course of the meal, King called across the table to Joe:
"I say, we've got old Tidball to thank for this feed, haven't we? If it hadn't been for that speech of his we'd never have had enough money in the treasury to buy sandwiches."
"I guess that's so," answered the captain.
"You fellows needn't think, though," cautioned Patterson, "that you're going to get this sort of thing every trip."
"I wish," said Jack to Motter, who sat at his left, "that I could take some of this dinner back to Tidball. I don't believe he ever had a real good dinner in all his life!"