“Two weeks from to-morrow; Y.M.C.A. Team. They’ll beat us, of course, but Bat says it’ll give us good practice.” “That’s a Saturday, isn’t it? I guess I’ll try and get out to see it. How are you hitting, Sid?” “Rotten! So we all are. Bat had us at the net over an hour yesterday and he was hopping mad at the way we missed them.” Sidney chuckled. “He told Buster he swung at the ball with--what was it he said? Oh, ‘with all the ineffable grace of a derrick!’ Buster was so mad he almost swallowed his tongue trying to keep it still!” “That _must_ have been hard for Buster,” replied Tom, with a laugh. “Guess I’ll certainly have to get out some day and see your wonderful team at work!” Sidney gazed at him reproachfully. “If you were half-way decent,” he said, “you’d come out and help instead of poking fun at us!” At Mrs. Tully’s boarding-house dinner was served at the fashionable hour of six-thirty, and quite often Tom had nearly a half-hour to wait after getting home from the store. Sometimes he made use of the interim to study the morrow’s lessons, sometimes he read the morning paper, turning first of all to the baseball and sporting news, and sometimes, if the weather was fair, he sat on the front steps and conversed with whoever turned up there. With the advent of warmer weather it was almost always pleasanter on the front steps than indoors. The grass in the little plot in front began to take on a tinge of new green and the shrubbery that hid the party fence along the side-yard showed swollen buds. One spring-like evening, a day or two after the last recorded talk with Sidney, Tom came downstairs after washing for dinner and seated himself on the top step at Mrs. Tully’s. None of the other boarders were there and after a moment Tom, hands in pockets, possessed of a restlessness that made sitting still uncomfortable, wandered past the newly raked flower bed and into the side-yard. There was a long stretch of turf there, flanked on one side by the hedge and fence and on the other by a gravel walk which led along the side of the house, under the parlour and dining-room windows, to a gate in a brown board fence. This fence hid the back-yard where the clothes were dried and where the ashes were kept until, on Monday mornings, Mr. Tully, attired in blue overalls, rolled them out in four big galvanised iron barrels to the sidewalk, whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Just what connection there might be between ashes and the star-spangled banner, Tom couldn’t make out; but Mr. Tully always whistled that particular tune and nothing else on such occasions.