“Well, I wouldn’t look for more than a hundred a month at first. You see, Wayne, you aren’t anything remarkable yet. You don’t mind my talking plain? This man Farrel is banking on you learning the game and turning out well in a couple of years. He thinks that if they can get hold of you now and sign you up at a small salary it’ll pay them to do it on the chance that you’ll be of real use later. I dare say there are lots of chaps who play just about the same sort of game that you do right now. Personally, I think you’ll make good. You sort of--sort of--well, I don’t just know how to say it, but you sort of _look_ good. There’s a certainty in the way you handle the ball and the way you handle yourself that’s promising. I guess it struck Farrel the same way. If he was sure he could come around two years from now and find you he wouldn’t have made a sound today, but he isn’t. He’s afraid that someone else will discover you and grab you. But don’t get it into your head that you’re a marvel, Wayne, because you aren’t. Not yet. If you do go over to Harrisville, old man, talk small and don’t let your hat hurt you.” “I won’t. I don’t think this has swelled my head any. What I’m afraid of is that this manager man won’t like me when he sees me.” “That’s possible, too. Better not hope too much. I dare say Farrel sends a lot of fellows over there who just turn around and go home again. But his offering to stake you to your fares looks as if he was pretty fairly certain in your case.” “Oh, I wouldn’t take that money,” said Wayne earnestly. “You will if you go. I’ll see that you do. It’s a business proposition, Wayne. Farrel’s paying you ten dollars for an option on you. If he takes you he gets his option money back. You mustn’t think, though, that being a minor league ball player is all roses. It’s no picnic. You’ll have to practice every morning, whether you get on or not, you’ll have to beat it around the country for weeks at a time, sleeping on the train or in punk hotels, you’ll get bawled out when you pull a boner and no one will say ‘Thank you’ when you make a star play: no one but the ‘fans,’ and they’ll be the first to hoot you the next day if you make one miscue. You’ll run up against some rough ones on the team who will probably make life a perfect misery for you at first, and you’ll get the short end of a lot of decisions until the umpires see that you are real. I don’t want you to think that minor league ball playing is all bread and treacle, Wayne.” “Maybe it’ll be hard,” was the response, “but any work is hard, isn’t it? And I’d rather do something hard that I like to do than something easy that I don’t. And I do like to play ball, Arthur. Besides, a hundred dollars a month is real money to me. If I stayed on the team three months I’d have three hundred dollars!” “Not quite, because you have to live meanwhile. Remember that the club only pays your bills while you’re travelling, and you’re travelling only about half the time.”