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"I didn’t claim no such a thing," says Ike. "I thought maybe you might of gave me a sign, but I was goin’ anyway because I thought I had a good start. "

Cap prob’ly would of hit him with a bat, only just about that time Doyle booted one on Hayes and Carey come acrost with the run that tied.

Well, we go into the ninth finally, one and one, and Marquard walks McDonald with nobody out.

"Lay it down," says Cap to Ike.

And Ike goes up there with orders to bunt and cracks the first ball into that right-field stand! It was fair this time, and we’re two ahead, but I didn’t think about that at the time. I was too busy watchin’ Cap’s face. First he turned pale and then he got red as fire and then he got blue and purple, and finally he just laid back and busted out laughin’. So we wasn’t afraid to laugh ourselfs when we seen him doin’ it, and when Ike come in everybody on the bench was in hysterics.

But instead o’ takin’ advantage, Ike had to try and excuse himself. His play was to shut up and he didn’t know how to make it.

"Well," he says, "if I hadn’t hit quite so quick at that one I bet it’d of cleared the center-field fence. "

Cap stopped laughin’.

"It’ll cost you plain fifty," he says.

"What for?" says Ike.

"When I say ‘bunt’ I mean ‘bunt,’" says Cap.

"You didn’t say ‘bunt,’" says Ike.

"I says ‘Lay it down,’" says Cap. "If that don’t mean ‘bunt,’ what does it mean?"

"’Lay it down’ means ‘bunt’ all right," says Ike, "but I understood you to say ‘Lay on it.’"

"All right," says Cap, "and the little misunderstandin’ will cost you fifty. "

Ike didn’t say nothin’ for a few minutes. Then he had another bright idear.

"I was just kiddin’ about misunderstandin’ you," he says. "I knowed you wanted me to bunt. "

"Well, then, why didn’t you bunt?" ast Cap.

"I was goin’ to on the next ball," says Ike. "But I thought if I took a good wallop I’d have ’em all fooled. So I walloped at the first one to fool ’em, and I didn’t have no intention o’ hittin’ it. "

"You tried to miss it, did you?" says Cap.

"Yes," says Ike.

"How’d you happen to hit it?" ast Cap.

"Well," Ike says, "I was lookin’ for him to throw me a fast one and I was goin’ to awing under it. But he come with a hook and I met it right square where I was swingin’ to go under the fast one. "

"Great!" says Cap. "Boys," he says, "Ike’s learned how to hit Marquard’s curve. Pretend a fast one’s comin’ and then try to miss it. It’s a good thing to know and Ike’d ought to be willin’ to pay for the lesson. So I’m goin’ to make it a hundred instead o’ fifty. "

The game wound up 3 to 1. The fine didn’t go, because Ike hit like a wild man all through that trip and we made pretty near a clean-up. The night we went to Philly I got him cornered in the car and I says to him:

"Forget them alibis for a wile and tell me somethin’. What’d you do that for, swing that time against Marquard when you was told to bunt?"

"I’ll tell you," he says. "That ball he throwed me looked just like the one I struck out on in the first innin’ and I wanted to show Cap what I could of done to that other one if I’d knew it was the third strike. "