“Not unless he wants me to,” said Bill cheerfully. “He can keep that ball right under my chin if he wants to. He didn’t show a drop on that ball the other day, but if he’s got one he can fan me about four times. If he can’t, I’ll get a base on balls a couple of times. That’s about the limit of my speed against him. I can’t hit a high ball, and Bowen knows it, too.” “It might be a good idea for you to learn, then,” said Jim pleasantly. He looked at his watch. “Come along! It’s half past one now. We’ll cut that lecture on political science—we’ve got three cuts left in that—pick up Sam Taylor, and go out to the field. Then I’ll show you a few things about high-ball pitching.” Brady groaned in mock dismay at the prospect of some extra practice. “Gee!” he said. “You’re a worse slave driver than Dick Merriwell himself. How about Harry here? He hasn’t learned to hit a fast shoot yet—and he always swipes at them. Doesn’t he need to practice, too?” “He sure does,” said Jim Phillips. “Come on, Harry. You’re elected, too. We’ve got to try to have a warm reception ready for Mr. Briggs if he’s so especially keen about making trouble for us. Good thing you picked up one of his tricks, Bill. It may mean the difference between winning and losing if we can pick up a run right at the start, before he and Bowen get on to the fact that we’ve corrected some of the weaknesses he’s been counting on.” Jim Phillips, already assured, by his remarkable pitching, of the captaincy of the next year’s nine, although he would then be only a junior, although few Yale captains are chosen from any but the senior class, had qualities of leadership that made his fitness for that important position very marked. To induce men like Maxwell and Brady, his intimate friends and classmates, to go out on such a day, when the very air invited them to loaf and rejoice in the lassitude of the weather, was no small feat. It was his magnetism and his persuasiveness that accomplished it; and such qualities do much for a man who must lead other men. In college sports, particularly, a captain should be a leader rather than a driver, inducing men to do what he wants in a tactful way, so that they will be willing and eager, instead of feeling that they are being forced to do their work because of the authority vested in the captain. Taylor, the senior catcher, once an enemy of Jim Phillips, but now his devoted friend, although Bill Brady had displaced him as the regular varsity catcher, as Jim Phillips had displaced Taylor’s roommate and closest friend, Bob Gray, as the first-string pitcher, proved very willing to go out to the field with them and catch for Jim while the other two practiced with their bats in the effort to become familiar with the curves most likely to be employed by the formidable Harvard pitcher.