"Aren't you anxious to begin twirling the horsehide?" asked Sid. "I should think you'd lose some speed, having only the cage to practice in, Tom." "I am, but I guess we'll get some decent weather soon. This can't last forever." "It's in a fair way to," grumbled Phil. "It would be a nice night if it didn't rain," came from Sid musingly, as he turned back to the old easy chair, "which remark," he added, "is one a little boy made in the midst of a driving storm, when he met his Sunday-school teacher, and wanted to say something, but didn't know what." "Your apology is accepted," murmured Tom. "I don't know what you fellows are going to do, but I'm going to sew up a rip in my pitcher's glove. I think maybe if I do the weather man will get a hunch on himself, and hand us out a sample of a nice day for us to select from." "Nice nothing!" was what Phil growled, but with the activity of Tom in getting out his glove, and searching for needle and thread, there came a change of atmosphere in the room. The rain came down as insistently, and the wind lashed the drops against the panes, but there was an air of relief among the chums. "I've got to fix a rip in my own glove," murmured Sid. "Guess I might as well get at it," and he noted Tom threading a needle. "And I've got to do a little more boning on this trigonometry," added Phil, as, with a sigh, he opened the despised book. For a time there was silence in the apartment, while the rain on the windows played a tattoo, more or less gentle, as the wind whipped the drops; the timepiece fussed away, as if reminding its hearers that time and tide waited for no man, and that 99-cent alarm clocks were especially exacting in the matter. Occasionally Sid shifted his position in the big chair, to which he had returned, each movement bringing out a cloud of dust, and protests from his chums. The room was typical of the three lads who occupied it. At the beginning of their friendship, and their joint occupation of a study, they had agreed that each was to be allowed one side of the apartment to decorate as he saw fit. The fourth side of this particular room was broken by two windows, and not of much use, while one of the other walls contained the door, and this one Sid had chosen, for the simple reason that his fancy did not run to such things as did Tom's and Phil's, and he required less space for his ornaments.