"Perhaps Merriwell may stand on his dignity and refuse to go in at all at this late stage of the game."
"He wouldn't be to blame if he did, for he can't win out."
"Something is up. Hello! Merriwell is getting out of his sweater! I believe Putnam is going to send him out!"
There was a great satisfaction in Pierson's voice. At last it seemed that he would get a chance to see Merriwell work.
"Somebody ought to go down and rap Putnam on the coco with a big heavy club!" growled Collingwood. "He should have made the change long ago. The Harvard Willies have been piling up something every inning."
Down on the visitors' bench Merriwell was seen to peel off, while Gordon was talking rather excitedly to Burnham Putnam. It seemed evident by his manner that he was speaking of something that did not please him very much.
Merriwell was pulled out of his sweater, and then somebody tossed him a practice ball. Little Danny Griswold, the Yale shortstop, put on a catcher's mitt and prepared to catch for Frank.
Yale was making a last desperate struggle for a score in the sixth inning. With one man out and a man on first, a weak batter came up. If the batter tried to get a hit, it looked like a great opportunity for a double play by Harvard.
Old Put, who was in uniform, ran down to first, and sent in the coacher, whose place he took on the line. Then he signaled the batter to take one, his signal being obeyed, and it proved to be a ball.
Put was a great coacher, and now he opened up in a lively way, with Robinson rattling away over by third. Put was not talking simply to rattle the pitcher; he was giving signals at the same time, and he signed for the man on first to go down on the next pitch, at the same time giving the batter the tip to make a fake swing at the ball to bother the catcher.
This programme was carried out, and it worked, for the runner got second on a slide and a close decision.
Then the Yale rooters opened their throats, and blue banners fluttered in a bunch over on the bleachers where the New Haven gang was packed together.
"Yell, you suckers, yell!" cried Dickson, Harvard's first baseman. "It's the only chance you'll get."
His words were drowned in the tumult and noise.
Up in the grand stand there was a waving of blue flags and white handkerchiefs, telling that there were not a few of the fair spectators who sympathized with the boys from New Haven.