Wayne entered the shed and looked around. There was a table in the first half-lighted room, and a half-dozen ticket boxes in a row on the floor. The table held a telephone instrument, some newspapers, a blotting-pad that looked as though it had been unchanged for many years and a litter of miscellaneous articles. But there were no base straps there and Wayne penetrated to the next apartment. This was evidently the dressing-room, for one side was lined with wooden lockers, most of them open and displaying the street costumes of the players, and on the other side were half a dozen showers. Two bare tables occupied the centre. Three wooden benches about completed the furnishings. One of the benches held a pile of towels and a box which, containing bottles and rolls of tape and gauze, exhaled a strong odour of liniment. But still there were no straps and Wayne returned to the outer room and was about to acknowledge defeat when his eyes fell on a closet. Although its door was closed, the key was in the lock, and when he had pulled it open he found what he was after. There were all sorts of things in that closet: base bags, bats, boxes of balls, masks, chest protectors, boxes whose contents he could only guess at, and, finally, a lot of straps depending from a nail. Wayne took one of the latter, closed the door as he had found it and went out again. Everyone had crossed to the further side of the field where the batting-nets stood, and Wayne took the strap down to second base and proceeded to fix it in place. When he had finished and had secured the bag to its spike he went over to Jimmy Slattery, who was coaching the batters at the nearer net, and held out the broken strap. “What shall I do with this?” he asked. “Huh?” asked Jimmy. “Oh, throw it away, kid. Want a job?” “Yes,” answered Wayne truthfully. “Get out there then and chase some of those balls,” directed the other. So Wayne went down the field, discarded his jacket and placed it against the fence and got to work. It was work, too, for only three of the players were fielding and they were quite content to let Wayne run after the hits that went over their heads or got past them. Now and then Wayne had the fun of trying for a fly. When he did he usually got it, although he started out with a muff that brought ironical remarks from the others. “Open your mouth and let it fall in,” called Fawcett. “Put your hands up,” advised Briggs facetiously, “and see will the ball hit ’em, kid!” But Wayne only smiled as he trotted after the elusive sphere and threw it to the nearer fielder. The next time the ball did hit his hands and, moreover, stayed in them, and Briggs was ready with a cheerful “’Ata boy! Squeeze it!” After that, by common consent, a fly that passed over the heads of the three players was left to Wayne undisputed. “Say, Win,” called Briggs once, “you’ll be losing your job first thing you know. The kid’s clever!”