human
There are times when it positively is a crime not to swear, he hoarsely said.
gpt
It seems to me that this is one of the times. If you will cuss a little it will relieve my feelings immensely.
human
Why don't you swear?
gpt
Why don't I? Poly hoker--no, holy poker! I have been swearing all the way from Cambridge to New Haven, and I have completely run out of profanity.
human
Well, I think you have done enough for both of us.
gpt
Oh, indeed! Well, that is hard of me! I came in here expecting to find you breaking the furniture, and you are as calm and serene as a summer's morning. I tell you, Frank, it is an awful shock! And you are the one who should do the most swearing. I can't understand you, hanged if I can!
human
Well, you know there is an old saw that says it is useless to cry over spilled milk--
gpt
Confound your old saws! Crying and swearing are two different things. Don't you ever cuss, Frank?
human
Never.
gpt
Well, I'd like to know how you can help it on an occasion like this! That is what gets me.
human
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.
gpt
Don't--don't preach now! he protested.
human
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.
gpt
You don't seem to have succeeded in relieving your feelings much.
human
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!
gpt
Go it, old man, he smiled.
human
You will feel better pretty soon.
gpt
I don't know whether I will or not! snapped Harry.
human
It was a sheastly bame--I mean a beastly shame! That game was ours!
gpt
Not quite. It came very near being ours.
human
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!
gpt
Oh, I don't know. They are not such great batters.
human
Gordon found them pretty fast. I tell you some of those fellows are batters--good ones, too.
gpt
Well, they didn't happen to get onto my delivery.
human
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!
gpt
I had a chance to size every man up while Gordon was pitching, and that gave me the advantage.
human
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!
gpt
If I didn't think I could pitch some I wouldn't try it. said Frank, quietly.
human
But I am not fool enough to think I am the only one. There are others.
gpt
Well, they are not freshmen, and I'll tell you that.
human
I don't know about that.
gpt
I do.
human
All right. Have it as you like it.
gpt
And you batted like a fiend. Twice at bat and two hits--a two-bagger and a three-bagger.
human
A single and a three-bagger, if you please.
gpt
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.
human
You think so, but it is all guesswork. I might have struck out.
gpt
You might, but you wouldn't. Oh, merry thunder! To think that a little single would have tied that game, and we couldn't get it! It actually makes me ill at the pit of my stomach!
human
Don't take it to heart so, my boy, said Frank.
gpt
The poor chaps earned that game, and they ought to have it. We'll win the last one of the series, and that's all we want. Do you want to bury poor old Harvard?
human
You can't bury her so deep that she won't crawl out, and you know that. Those fellows are decidedly soon up at Cambridge, and Yale does well to get all she can from them. You can't tell what will happen next game. They have seen you, and they may have a surprise to spring on us. If we pulled this game off the whole thing would be settled now.
gpt
We made a good bid for the game to-day, but it wasn't our luck to win, and so we may as well swallow our medicine and keep still.
human
It wasn't a case of luck at all, spluttered Harry.
gpt
It was sheer bull-headedness, that's what it was! If Put had put you in long before he did the game might have been saved.
human
He didn't like to pull Gordon out, you see.
gpt
Well, if he's running this team on sentiment, the sooner he quits the better it will be for the team.