But the lion in him was rampant.
Fortunately, it was his strange gift to pitch better
the angrier he got; and the more the Quakers
flayed him, the more he let himself out to their
crushing humiliation.
The innings swiftly passed to the eighth with
Chicago failing to score again, with Philadelphia
failing to score at all. One scratch hit and a single,
gifts to the weak end of the batting list, were
all the lank pitcher allowed them. Long since the
bleachers had crowned the Rube. He was theirs
and they were his; and their voices had the
peculiar strangled hoarseness due to over-exertion.
The grand stand, slower to understand and
approve, arrived later; but it got there about the
seventh, and ladies' gloves and men's hats were
sacrificed.
In the eighth the Quakers reluctantly yielded
their meed of praise, showing it by a cessation of
their savage wordy attacks on the Rube. It was
a kind of sullen respect, wrung from the bosom of
great foes.
Then the ninth inning was at hand. As the
sides changed I remembered to look at the
feminine group in our box. Milly was in a most
beautiful glow of happiness and excitement. Nan
sat rigid, leaning over the rail, her face white
and drawn, and she kept saying in a low voice:
``Will it never end? Will it never end?'' Mrs.
Nelson stared wearily.
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