“Never.”

“Well, I’d like to know how you can help it on an occasion like this!  That is what gets me.”

“Never having acquired the habit, it is very easy to get along without swearing, which is, beyond a doubt, the most foolish habit a man can get into.”

Rattleton held up both hands, with a look of absolute horror on his face.

“Don’t—­don’t preach now!” he protested.  “I think the habit of swearing is a blessing sometimes—­an absolute blessing.  A man can relieve his feelings that way when he can’t any other.”

“You don’t seem to have succeeded in relieving your feelings much.”

“I don’t?  Well, you should have seen me when I got aboard the train!  I was at high pressure, and there was absolute danger of an explosion.  I just had to open the safety valve and blow off.  And I find you as calm as a clock!  Oh, Frank, it is too much—­too much!” and Harry pretended to weep.

“Go it, old man,” he smiled.  “You will feel better pretty soon.”

“I don’t know whether I will or not!” snapped Harry.  “It was a sheastly bame—­I mean a beastly shame!  That game was ours!”

“Not quite.  It came very near being ours.”

“It was!  Why, you actually had it pulled out!  You held those fellows down and never gave them a single safe hit!  That was wonderful work!”

“Oh, I don’t know.  They are not such great batters.”

“Gordon found them pretty fast.  I tell you some of those fellows are batters—­good ones, too.”

“Well, they didn’t happen to get onto my delivery.”

“Happen! happen! happen!  There was no happen about it.  They couldn’t get onto you.  You had them at your mercy.  It was wonderful pitching, and I can lick the gun of a son—­er—­son of a gun that says it wasn’t!”

“I had a chance to size every man up while Gordon was pitching, and that gave me the advantage.”

“That makes me tired!  Of course you had time to size them up; but you couldn’t have kept them without a hit if you hadn’t been a dandy pitcher.  Your modesty is simply sickening sometimes!”

Then Harry pranced up and down the room like am infuriated tiger, almost gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth.

“If I didn’t think I could pitch some I wouldn’t try it.” said Frank, quietly.  “But I am not fool enough to think I am the only one.  There are others.”

“Well, they are not freshmen, and I’ll tell you that.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

“All right.  Have it as you like it.”

“And you batted like a fiend.  Twice at bat and two hits—­a two-bagger and a three-bagger.”

“A single and a three-bagger, if you please.”

“Well, what’s the matter with that?  Whee jiz—­mean jee whiz!  Could anybody ask for anything more?  You got the three-bagger just when it was needed most, and you would have saved the game if you had come to the bat in the last inning.”