“I see. Well, I’d advise this fellow to keep out of it then. He’d be wasting his time with a bunch of pikers like that.” Pattern turned from Big Tom’s indignant countenance to Wayne. “When you think you’d like to play ball for a living, you tackle the manager of a real team. Tell him you want a try-out. He will give it to you if he’s any good. If he isn’t you don’t want to join him. These two-by-twice ball teams don’t get you anything but a lot of hard work and you can stay in one of them until you’re gray-headed without doing any better for yourself. I played with one of them one summer and I know something about them. When you aim, aim high. It pays.” “I wasn’t thinking of aiming at all,” said Wayne. “I don’t reckon I could play baseball good enough for a real team.” “Maybe you could and maybe you couldn’t,” replied Pattern. “Anyway, don’t throw up a good job on the off-chance of becoming a Ty Cobb or a Baker.” Big Tom took himself off, disgruntled and grumbling, and Pattern swung himself to the platform at Wayne’s side. “How old are you?” he asked, and raised his eyebrows when Wayne told him seventeen. “I’d have thought you were eighteen, anyway,” he said. “Played much?” “I played four years at home,” answered Wayne, “on my school team. And one summer with a team we got up in our town.” “That all? Well, some fellows are like that. Sort of born with the baseball knack. Comes naturally to them. My roommate in college was that sort. He didn’t have to learn, you might say. He was the shiftiest shortstop I ever saw outside professional teams. You sort of remind me of him the way you handle the ball.” “Do they really pay as much as twenty dollars a week?” asked Wayne. “I mean just for fielders. Of course I know that pitchers and star batters get lots of money, but I always thought most of it was just--just on paper.” “There are all sorts of salaries. You get somewhere near what you’re worth, as a general thing. Twenty a week is poor pay for a good fielder, my boy, even in the bushes. Thirty-five’s more like it.” “Thirty-five dollars a week!” exclaimed Wayne. “Why, that’s more than two hundred a month!” CHAPTER X NEW FRIENDS “Yes, I believe it figures out something like that,” laughed the other. “But, mind you, I’m not saying you could get that. Probably you couldn’t get anything yet. You’re a year or two too young. If I were you, and thought seriously of playing professional ball, I’d get on some amateur team this year and play with them for the practice.” “What’s the difference, please, between an amateur team and a professional?” “Money. On an amateur team you play for the love of playing and nothing else. On a professional team you play for the love of playing plus a fat salary.” “I see,” murmured Wayne. “But could I--I mean would you----”