“I know. It’s too warm now to feel ambitious. All a fellow wants to do at recess is lie on his back and watch the clouds go over and wonder where they get the energy to do it! You can’t say, though, that that scheme of mine hasn’t worked.” “I don’t try to. It did me a lot of good, Jack. I――I almost think that by next year I’ll be a fairly good hitter.” “You’ll be that this year if you keep on improving. Tom is the only fellow you can’t hit about as you like. And that’s no disgrace to you, because Tom Pollock is about as good a pitcher as you’ll find in the State, and I’m not excepting professionals, either!” “Toby told me the other day that Tom has a chance to go to a league team whenever he wants to.” “I should say he had! Why, three or four teams have been after him. He could get a try-out with Detroit tomorrow if he wanted it. But Tom says he’s going to college next Fall, and, of course, he wants to play ball there.” “I should think he would. I wish I thought I could go to college, Jack.” “Why can’t you? In another year you’ll have so much money saved up that you’ll be able to do as you like! The stand’s doing better every month, and the first thing we know we’ll be millionaires!” “We fooled ourselves about Young, all right, didn’t we? Honest, Jack, I expected long before this that he’d have shown a yellow streak.” “Me, too. And the funny thing is that I still don’t altogether trust him. But everything seems perfectly straight, doesn’t it?” “Absolutely. I don’t believe he’s done a thing shady except swipe a box of cigarettes now and then. I guess he’s about as good a fellow as we could have found for the job.” “He sure is. By the way, when we engaged him we said something about giving him a raise, didn’t we, if he got along all right?” “Yes, we did, and I suppose we’d better be thinking about doing it. Still, he’s been working only about two months. We’ll let it go until next month, Jack.” “All right. I dare say he isn’t looking for a raise just yet. He hasn’t made any hints to me, anyway. The thing that puzzles me, though, is how he can wear the flossy clothes he does on ten dollars per. He’s almost as beautiful as Frank Foley!” “I can answer that,” replied Joe drily. “He has accounts with a lot of the stores. A chap came in the other day when I was at the stand and wanted me to pay a bill of sixteen dollars for underwear and ties and things. Thought I was Young. I told him to try again. If he has many bills around town like that one he won’t be with us much longer, I guess, and that’s one reason I think it’ll be just as well to wait a bit longer before we make that raise. It doesn’t do much good to raise a chap’s wages and have him leave you in the lurch a few weeks later.”