“I am not, Mr. Loring, what you might call well informed on the subject. I have, though, witnessed several contests of professional baseball and observed it closely, and while there are numerous points――” “I get you. Well, we’ll have to send for some books, I guess. You see, Wattles, we’re going to play the game this spring.” “We, sir?” asked Wattles with a trace of surprise. “Oh, well, I mean Clif and Tom. You and I are going to look on, though, and so it’s up to us to study the game thoroughly and get so we understand the――the fine points, eh?” “Undoubtedly,” agreed Wattles. “A most interesting pastime, I’ve no doubt, if one possesses a thorough knowledge of the intricacies.” “Sure! Don’t forget those books from the library.” Wattles looked almost pained as he pushed the chair to its customary location at one side of the doorway and retired. Wattles never forgot. Two days later candidates for the Wyndham School Baseball Team assembled in the gymnasium. While the rest of the school was contained under one roof, with East, Middle and West Halls forming three sides of a quadrangle, the gymnasium, new and well appointed, was set at a little distance behind East Hall, with which it was connected by a covered walk. This afternoon, since it was raining with the dogged persistence of February rains in the Connecticut hills, the roofed passage was much in vogue. Clif and Tom made use of it, as, a little later, did Loring and Wattles. The candidates gathered in the baseball cage on the ground floor, a big, well-lighted inclosure in which almost any feat of the game might be accomplished save the hitting of anything better than a single. Since the furnishings of the cage were meager, consisting as they did of three backless benches along one side, most of the fellows who had responded to the call stood either inside the cage or in the corridor that bordered it, and conversed with such sang froid as their relations with the team warranted. New candidates spoke in low tones, or not at all, while they viewed curiously and sometimes enviously the veterans of last year’s nine. Loring didn’t arrive until Mr. Connover had made his appearance and was addressing the assembled throng. The partition between cage and corridor was a wall, well padded on the inner side, to a height of three and a half feet. Above that a strong wire netting continued to the high ceiling. By sitting very erect in his wheel chair and stretching just a little Loring could see over the wall. Having set the chair in an inconspicuous place near one corner of the cage, Wattles removed his black derby, wiped the sweat-band with an immaculate handkerchief, returned the hat to his head and the handkerchief to a pocket and set himself to a grave and intent study of the proceedings.