Roy glanced at her breasts and she blushed. He got embarrassed too. “What do you say, Sam, it’s your four bits?”

Sam bowed low to the girl. “Ma’am,” he said, “now you see how dang foolish it is to be a young feller.”

The girl laughed and Roy began to throw for kisses, flushing each pyramid in a shot or two while the girl counted aloud the kisses she owed him.

Some of the people from the train passed by and stayed to watch when they learned from the mocking kids what Roy was throwing for.

The girl, pretending to be unconcerned, tolled off the third and fourth kisses.

As Roy fingered the ball for the last throw the Whammer came by holding over his shoulder a Louisville Slugger that he had won for himself in the batting cage down a way. Harriet, her pretty face flushed, had a kewpie doll, and Max Mercy carried a box of cigars. The Whammer had discarded his sun glasses and all but strutted over his performance and the prizes he had won.

Roy raised his arm to throw for the fifth kiss and a clean sweep when the Whammer called out to him in a loud voice, “Pitch it here, busher, and I will knock it into the moon.”

Roy shot for the last kiss and missed. He missed with the second and third balls. The crowd oohed its disappointment.

“Only four,” said the girl in yellow as if she mourned the fifth.

Angered at what had happened, Sam hoarsely piped, “I got ten dollars that says he can strike you out with three pitched balls, Wambold.”

The Whammer looked at Sam with contempt.

“What d’ye say, Max?” he said.

Mercy shrugged.

“Oh, I love contests of skill,” Harriet said excitedly. Roy’s face went pale.