“Take my advice, Thad, and wait a little longer,” Hugh told him.  “Tomorrow will be Saturday and we play Belleville again in the afternoon.  Besides, didn’t he tell us it was going to be Matilda’s birthday, and that he and Andrew had fixed it to surprise her a little?  Well, don’t say anything to the Parson until next week, and by that time perhaps we’ll know a heap more than we do now.”

Thad looked keenly at the speaker, but Hugh kept a straight face.  If a glimmering suspicion that Hugh might know of something he was averse to confiding to even his best chum darted through Thad’s mind just then he allowed it to slip past.

“All right, Hugh, I guess it won’t do any harm to hold up a few more days.  Matilda has stood it so long now that it isn’t going to hurt her to endure another week or so of her brother’s company, and his appetite in the bargain.  I’ll try and forget all about it in thinking of our game with Belleville.  We’ve just got to clinch that, as sure as anything, if we hope to have a look-in at that pennant.”

“We’re going to do it, Thad,” said Hugh, with set teeth.  “Once we put Belleville in the soup for keeps we can devote our undivided attention to Allandale.  They have the jump on us, of course, owing to hard luck.  But, thank goodness, Alan Tyree is all right again, and he told me this morning he felt that his arm was better than ever before.  That means Belleville won’t be able to do anything with his delivery tomorrow afternoon.”

“This time we play on our own grounds,” suggested Thad, “and the advantage is all in our favor.  Everybody seems to think we should have an easy snap.”

“I rather think everybody stands for Ivy Middletown, Sue Barnes and Peggy Nolan,” jeered Hugh, causing his chum to give a confused little laugh, as though the shot had gone home.  “But what do girls know about baseball?  It’s a game of uncertainties all the way through.  Many a time a pitcher, believing himself safe and invincible, because his club is away ahead, has eased up a trifle, and the other fellows start a batting bee that nearly puts the fat in the fire, and gives him the scare of his life.  Belleville went down to defeat last Saturday before Allandale, and the score looks rotten, but you remember they fought like tigers.”

“You’re right, Hugh.”

“And only for some hard luck they would have started a streak of hitting that might have pulled them out of the hole.  Half a dozen fierce drives were taken on the run by Allandale fielders, any one of which, if sent ten feet one way or the other, would have counted for a three-bagger easily.  That’s how luck has a hand in defeating a team, and there’s no way of denying it, either.”

“Well, we mean to put up our best sort of game, and not count it won till the last man goes down in the final inning,” avowed Thad.

“It’s always wise to play safe in baseball,” declared the field captain of the Scranton High team, “and take nothing for granted.  Hit as hard as you can every time you’re at bat, and don’t allow yourself to be tempted to ease up out of sympathy for the other fellows.  It’s scant sympathy they’ll show you, once they get at your prize pitcher, to knock him out of the box.  Instead it’ll be jeers, and taunts, and every sort of thing calculated to sting.”