“I’ll make a monkey of you,” muttered Teall, just loudly enough for the words to reach Prescott.

“If you can, you’re welcome,” grunted Dick under his breath.

Swat!  It was the first ball driven in.  Had there been a fence around the field that fair drive would have gone over it.  How it soared and then flew!  The right fielder who followed that ball was nervous from the start.  He panted as he fell upon the ball.

“Throw it to third!” yelled Teall.

“Just at that instant Dan Dalzell was nearing the home plate, which Tom and Greg had already passed.  Prescott’s ankle turned slightly or he would have got in ahead of the ball.

“Runner out at third,” called Tozier in a singsong voice.  “Side out!”

“Yet who cared?” Dick’s wonderful blow on the leather had brought three men in safe.

The Souths followed at bat.  One, two, three, Prescott struck them out.  Ted Teall’s face looked solemn, indeed.

“Wells, we’ve simply got to hold these fellows down,” grunted Teall to his catcher in the brief conference for which there was time.  “We don’t want to be walloped by a score of ninety-four to two.”

“I haven’t let anything get by me, have I?” grunted the catcher.

“No; but signal for some of my new ones.”

“I don’t want to put a crimp in your wing,” muttered Wells.

“That’s all right.  It’s a tough wing.  Don’t let the Centrals score anything on us in this inning.”

“I’ll do my best to help you hold ’em down,” promised the South Grammar catcher as he hurried to his place behind the plate.

Dave Darrin, to his intense disgust, was struck out on three of the most crafty throws that Teall had on his list.  Hazelton followed.  Another player reached first on called balls, but the next Central boy struck a fair, short fly that landed in Ted’s own hands.

“That was more like,” grunted Ted, as he met his catcher at the bench.  “In that first inning these Centrals had me almost scared.”

In the second half of this second inning the Souths scored one run.  They did the same in the third and the fourth innings, meantime preventing Prescott’s fellows from scoring again, though in the fourth inning Prescott saw the bases full with Centrals just before the third man was struck out.

In the fifth and sixth innings neither side scored.  At last the spectators began to realize that they were watching two well-matched nines.

“I can’t see that the Central Grammars are doing such a lot of a much,” grunted Hi Martin to a High School boy.

“The Centrals are playing fine ball,” retorted the High School boy.  “The only trouble is that the Souths rank pretty close to them.”

“I’d like to play both teams again,” asserted Hi.  “All that happened to us was that we struck a few flukes when we played.”

“Humph!” retorted the High School lad, just before turning away.  “Your North Grammar nine was kicked all over the field by both of these nines.  Both Prescott’s and Teall’s fellows have improved a lot since they met you.”