Hector comes to bat in the next innin' with the bases as full as a miner on pay night. He lets two go by, right in the slot, and he fell down skinnin' his nose, swingin' at the next for the third and last strike. I removed him by hand and sent in a ball player to pitch the rest of the game. "Well, Alex," I says on the way home, "what do you think of your patient?" "Is he as bad as that every day?" he asks me. "No," I says. "He was Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson to-day, alongside of what he usually is!" "Hmmph!" grunts Alex. "I can see he ain't a ball player, anyway." "You been readin' 'Sherlock Holmes,'" I says. "Baseball ain't everything!" declares Alex, rubbin' his nose. "And the point we have to consider is--what _can_ he do?" "That's easy!" I says. "How much is seven from seven?" "Why--nothin'," says Alex. "That's Hector!" I says. With that I told him Hector's pedigree from the time he crossed my path when an infant, to date. I left out nothin' and laid it on good and thick. I explained how Hector had been the world's most consistent failure from the time he had been introduced as "It's a boy!" up to the time of writin' and when I got all through, Alex grins like a wolf. "A most promisin' case!" he says. "This here's somethin' that's gonna put me on my mettle, right at the start. The tougher a thing looks, the more appetizin' it strikes me! Now I'll take it for granted that this man's got no _strong_ points. All right--that's nothin' but a detail! You've told me a lot of hard things about him, but you ain't said he ain't human--and if he's human he's got a _weakness_! A well-developed weakness in a man has often been turned into glitterin' gold. Does he drink?" "Let's save time," I says. "Hector don't know whether whiskey and beer is drinks, or the battery for to-day's game. He couldn't tell you offhand whether tobacco was a thing to chew and smoke or the latest fox trot. The only woman he ever met twice was his mother, and he thinks sayin' 'Darnation!' in earnest is the same as homocide. His only love is baseball and his only weakness is his stomach!" "Aha!" says Alex. "I knew we'd get at it! He's fond of food, eh?" "Fond of it?" I says. "Why, this guy can do more things with a steak than Edison can do with a pint of electricity! He took me to a dinner he cooked himself one night and the only thing I recognized on the table was the water. Everything was fixed up after his own recipes and at the drop of a hat he can tell you how many of them calories and proteins they is in a pea!" "That's enough!" hollers Alex. "He's as good as over right now! He simply picked the wrong trade when he took up baseball, and I'll get him a job as chef in one of the famous hotels so--" "Don't make me laugh!" I cuts him off. "Would I of bet you, if it was as easy as that? They ain't a chance on earth--I thought of that years ago. Hector wouldn't boil water for money--he only cooks that stuff up for himself. He--"