Once having become thoroughly interested in the game, Jim learned about twice as fast as he had before. At first he accepted instruction without giving it much thought. Now he sought the reason for everything he was taught, found it and understood what he was doing and why. Jim liked to know the logic of what he undertook. If he couldn’t discover a reason for doing a thing he didn’t do it unless some one forced him to. Then he did it only half-heartedly. His rules book helped him a lot. There were books that would have explained many things to him and saved him much thought, but he didn’t know of them; and studying things out for himself doubtless made him remember them better. He amused Clem about this time--I am speaking of the week between the Lorimer and Southport games--by buying a football of his own and keeping it on the closet shelf. Several times daily he would take it down and handle it; drop it on the floor and catch it as it rebounded, place it on the floor and pick it up with one hand, his long fingers wrapping themselves about the end like--as Clem phrased it--a starfish on a quahog. Sometimes Clem would look up to find Jim with the ball poised in his right hand as if he meant to hurl it straight through the window, and always when he studied his rules book the brown leather spheroid was in his lap. Clem told him one evening, in mild protest, that he was sickening. “You fondle that silly thing like it was a baby! What’s the idea, Jim?” “Just want to--to get used to it,” replied Jim. “Want to know what I can do with it. You see, shaped like it is, you can’t handle it just like you can a round ball, Clem.” “My word! Think of that! And you discovered that all by yourself, too, didn’t you?” “Shut up,” said Jim, grinning. “Say, just stand over there and toss me a few, will you?” “Toss you-- No, I’ll be switched if I’m going to turn this room into a gridiron. First thing I know you’ll be moving the furniture out and kicking the thing around!” But he did toss the ball to Jim in the end, and Jim caught it various ways, studying each way, while Clem looked on and waited for the return of the ball with the expression of one humoring a lunatic. So far as Clem ever discovered that ball was never taken out of Number 15, until it went out for good, but it certainly saw a lot of handling there!