for the most part they are tense and silent now, all waiting for the instant crisis, the quick end.
Behind Ben, seated in a swivel chair, but turned out facing toward the crowd, the boy can see the gouty bulk of Mr. Flood, the owner of the paper. He is bent forward heavily in his seat, his thick apoplectic fingers braced upon his knees, his mouth ajar, his coarse, jowled, venously empurpled face and bulging yellow eyes turned out upon the crowd, in their constant expression of slow stupefaction. From time to time, when the crowd cheers loudly, the expression of brutal surprise upon Mr. Flood’s coarse face will deepen perceptibly and comically, and in a moment he will say stupidly, in his hoarse and phlegmy tones:
“Who done that?… What are they yelling for?… Which side’s ahead now?… What happened that time, Ben?”
To which Ben usually makes no reply whatever, but the savage scowl between his grey eyes deepens with exasperation, and finally, cursing bitterly, he says:
“Damn it, Flood! What do you think I am—the whole damned newspaper? For heaven’s sake, man, do you think all I’ve got to do is answer damn-fool questions? If you want to know what’s happening, go outside where the rest of them are!”
“Well, Ben, I just wanted to know how—” Mr. Flood begins hoarsely, heavily, and stupidly.
“Oh, for God’s sake! Listen to this, won’t you?” says Ben, laughing scornfully and contemptuously as he addresses the invisible auditor of his scorn, and jerking his head sideways toward the bloated figure of his employer as he does so. “Here!” he says, in a disgusted manner. “For God’s sake, someone go and tell him what the score is, and put him out of his misery!” And scowling savagely, he speaks sharply into the mouthpiece of the phone and puts another placard on the line.
And suddenly, even as the busy figures swarm and move there in the window before the waiting crowd, the bitter thrilling game is over! In waning light, in faint shadows, far, far away in a great city of the North, the 40, 000 small empetalled faces bend forward, breathless, waiting—single and strange and beautiful as all life, all living, and man’s destiny. There’s a man on base, the last flash of the great right arm, the crack of the bat, the streaking white of a clean-hit ball, the wild, sudden, solid roar, a pair of flashing legs have crossed the rubber, and the game is over! And instantly, there at the city’s heart, in the great stadium, and all across America, in
