Tom wished for a minute that he were many miles away. The few hundred persons in the stand suddenly looked like a thousand and their derisive laughter and shouted comments made his ears tingle. Behind him, as he drew his cap down firmly and hitched up his trousers--not because there was any danger of their slipping down, but because he had seen Thorny do it--his team-mates spoke encouragingly and cheerfully. “That’s the stuff, Pollock! Show ’em what you can do!” “Remember, Tom, we’re here right behind you! Take your time, old man!” The batsman stepped out of the box and Tom sent half a dozen balls to Walter to limber his arm up. In spite of an attempt to put them over the plate, they went everywhere and Tom’s heart sank as Walter reached this way and that to pull them in. If he didn’t do better than that against the batsman, he’d make a frightful mess of it! At last, “Play ball!” said the umpire. The batsman stepped back into the box, grinning and tapping his bat against the plate, and Tom looked to Walter for the signal, trying hard not to see the faces of the onlookers in the stand nor to hear their sarcastic comments and advice. Walter held one finger extended earthward under cover of his big mitt as he crouched behind the batter, the signal for a low ball. The batsman was a tall, weedy youth and a knee-high offering was likely to get by him. Tom gripped the ball, fixed his gaze on the lower point of Walter’s body protector, raised his hand well back and swung it forward. Walter leaped a yard to the right and saved the day, for the ball was intent on tearing a hole in the stand. Shouts and hoots and the thumping of feet came from the seats, and Tom, with sinking heart, tried to hide his embarrassment by picking up a pebble and tossing it away, just as he had seen Thorny do. Then the ball came back to him. “Take it easy, Pollock!” called Walter cheerfully. “Right across now, old man!” But his fingers called for an out-curve and, with fear and mental trembling, Tom wrapped his thumb and first two fingers about the dirt-stained ball. Back went his arm overhead, up came his left foot, forward swept the hand, turning palm-uppermost as it descended, away went the ball, and Tom, crouching after the throw, watched anxiously. Straight for the batsman sped the ball and then, suddenly, as though responding to a sudden change of mind, it “broke” to the left, the batsman swung and missed, and Walter snuggled the sphere in his big mitt. It was the most pronounced break Tom had ever seen on his efforts, and a vast relief and encouragement came to him. If he could make that out-shoot go, he could certainly put a straight ball where it was wanted! “Strike one!” announced the umpire. The Blues broke into expressions of approval and satisfaction. “That’s the stuff, Tom! You’ve got him swinging like a gate!” “He couldn’t see it, old man! You’ve got the stuff, all right, all right! Show it to him!” “Fine pitching, Pollock! Keep it up!”