Plainly impressed by what Walter said, Ned looked at Dan with renewed interest. He noted the long arm, the wiry form, the evident power and endurance, and his enthusiasm at once was aroused. “I’m glad you’re here, Dan,” he said simply. “Of course there isn’t much baseball in the fall――everything goes to football then. But we have some interform games; they’re mostly to keep up the spirit of the thing and try out the new fellows. We’ll give you a chance to show your mettle――――” “I’m wondering if I shall have any time for baseball,” said Dan simply. “I’ll probably have to work so hard at my books to keep up with you――――” “You won’t have to work very hard to keep up with Chesty,” broke in Ned with a laugh. “It’s nip and tuck between him and Walter here, and me, to see who’ll lead the class if you turn it wrong end to. And yet I’m improving some,” declared Ned. “I was down on the shore of Long Island this summer and took to riding a wheel. One day I was coasting down a small hill and coming at a pretty good clip, when my wheel struck a pocket of sand and I took a header before I could say Jack Robinson. A gentle, antique, old farmer and his boy happened to be passing in a farm-wagon at the time, and they both got off to see if I was hurt. ‘Hurt ye much?’ the old man asked me. When I told him I was all right he wanted to know how it happened, and with my exam in physics fresh in my mind I told him. I said, ‘When I came down that incline and my front cylindrical means of propulsion struck that pocket of disintegrated igneous rock my velocity was such that I lost my center of gravity and was precipitated upon the hard road of asphalt.’” “What did the old boy say?” laughed Walter. “‘Say’! For a moment that ancient and antiquated tiller of the soil was speechless. He hadn’t expected to hear such nice words as I gave him. Finally the old chap turned to his boy and gently remarked, ‘Come on, bub, I guess th’ fellow is one o’ them tarnal foreign chaps what can’t talk United States.’” “You ought not to excoriate the venerable husbandman after your providential escape,” said Frank. “Now, I wasn’t excoriating him. I’m no cannibal!” declared Ned. “What has a cannibal to do with it?” “Don’t you know what a cannibal is?” “I sure do. He is a chap that devours another.” “Course he is. Well, if a fellow bites another fellow’s back――a sort of backbiter, so to speak――I’d like to know if he doesn’t at least belong to the cannibal tribe, though I confess I don’t know whether they begin their shocking repast at the back or not.” “You are brilliant to-day, Ned,” laughed Walter. “How do you account for it?” “I don’t account for it. Maybe I sharpened my wits up a bit this summer with all my ‘wading.’” “Wading?” “That’s what I said, didn’t I? Wading! W-a-d-ing! No, hold on, that isn’t the way to spell it. W-a-d-d-ing! That’s right, isn’t it?” “Depends on whether you mean wading or wadding.” “I mean wading, all right. I waded all summer long――――”