Viewing the stretch of turf which in olden days would have made a fine bowling green, and the brown board fence, Tom had an idea. Ceasing his own whistling and bringing his hands smartly from his pockets, he turned and hurried up two flights of stairs to his room. When he returned he had a baseball in his hand. Measuring off the proper distance, Tom faced the division fence and began to throw the ball at it. It was rather a noisy operation and every moment he expected to hear remonstrance from Mrs. Tully. But he had thrown and recovered the ball a dozen times and his arm was getting nicely limbered up before anything happened. Then footsteps crunched on the path and Tom looked up to see Mr. George observing him with smiling interest. The railroad detective was rather disappointing in appearance, judged by one’s usual notion of what a detective should look like. He was tall and square-shouldered, had a large face with high cheek-bones and a prominent nose, and wore a black moustache that was clipped short. There were rather heavy brows over a pair of mild brown eyes and his cheeks were rather ruddy. Altogether, he looked prosperous and healthy and, above all, peaceable. He invariably wore dark Oxford clothes, but had a passion, it seemed, for loudly hued neckties. A rather heavy gold fob dangled into sight occasionally from a waistcoat pocket and a very big diamond ring adorned a finger of his left hand. At table Mr. George was not talkative. Neither was he taciturn. He never, however, made mention of his business. He and Tom always spoke when they met, but beyond that their acquaintance had not progressed. Now, though, he began conversation at once. “What are you pitching?” he asked, crossing the grass to a position behind the boy. “Just an out-curve, or trying to,” replied Tom, a trifle embarrassed. “Let’s see it,” said the other. Tom pitched and made rather a mess of it. “I’m not very good at it,” he murmured deprecatingly. “What you want is something to pitch across,” said the detective. “Wait a minute.” He set off to the back-yard and was soon back with the galvanised iron lid of an ash barrel. He set it on the grass some six feet from the fence. “That’s rather a big plate, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile. “Now let her go.” Tom, who had picked up his ball again, obeyed, and Mr. George nodded. “That’s not bad for a ‘roundhouse curve,’ son. What you want to do, though, is to make ’em break sharper.” Tom viewed him in surprise and interest. “Can you show me how?” he asked eagerly. “I guess I might,” was the reply. Mr. George leisurely divested himself of his coat, laid it, carefully folded, on the grass and took the ball. “It’s some time since I tried this,” he explained, fingering the ball knowingly. “Now you watch, son. Better get behind me so’s you can see.” [Illustration: “Now you watch, son. Better get behind me so’s you can see”]