The coach was a former high school boy named Talbot. He was no longer a boy, being a sturdy young man of twenty-six and a promising lawyer in Amesville. But Mr. Bennet A. Talbot’s practice was as yet not large enough to prohibit him from giving much time every spring to the coaching of the baseball team, an unremunerative task which he performed for sheer love of the game and loyalty to the school. When a youngster he had been known as “Bat,” a nickname derived from his initials, and the appellation still held. A better man to take charge of a group of boys couldn’t have been found, for he was still very much of a boy himself in feelings, able to get a boy’s viewpoint, sympathetic, and enthusiastic. But Mr. Talbot insisted on obedience, and the school in general awaited with frank interest the first clash of wills between coach and captain. Both Thorny and Walter White were gone from the team this spring, but Walter was still in Amesville and took much interest in the team. It was Walter who continually insisted that Tom should come out for the nine and who finally brought the matter to the coach’s attention, with the result that Mr. Talbot called on Tom in the store one afternoon in late March. “Walter White,” he said, “tells me that you can pitch, Pollock. Now, we need pitchers the worst way this spring. We’re pretty nearly destitute in that line. What’s the matter with your trying for the job, Pollock?” Tom explained that his work prevented. Mr. Talbot frowned, just as Thorny had done, and was inclined to belittle the excuse. When, however, Tom mildly inquired how he was to earn his board and lodging if he gave up his position in the hardware store, the coach was at a loss. “If we were a professional team,” he replied with a smile, “we could pay you a salary, but I’m afraid as it is we can’t. But I’m sorry. White says you’ve got the making of a good pitcher, and it seems too bad that we can’t get your help. I suppose there is no way that you could arrange with your employers to get off in the afternoons?” “I don’t think so, sir. You see, I’m only here, anyway, a few hours a day--except on Saturdays. Besides, Mr. Talbot, I can’t pitch much. I guess Walter was sort of--sort of exaggerating.” The coach went away dissatisfied, and Tom sighed regretfully for what might have been. An enticing vision of Tom Pollock, attired in the brown-and-blue of Amesville High School, standing commandingly in the pitcher’s box and dealing puzzling curves to a bewildered opponent, came to him, and he sighed again as he folded up a pair of running trunks and laid them away in their flat pasteboard box. Sidney evolved all sorts of schemes for Tom’s emancipation from labour, including a popular subscription to reimburse him for his wages and a direct appeal by the athletic association, backed up by the school in general, to Cummings and Wright!