He paused before the window, to gaze out upon the starlit sky and the long lines of houses and lights which lost form and brilliancy in the distance. Mechanically, he watched the passers-by, envying their apparent freedom from care and trouble. "I wonder if Bob has ever thought I should get off the team!" Tom Clifton had never before been assailed with such conflicting emotions. Was Mr. Barry's field destined to become the monument to the folly of a few? "I'll go right over and see Bob now," he decided, suddenly. And then, just as Tom was about to open the door, the sarcastic, grinning face of Benny Wilkins seemed to flash before his eyes. "Am I going to let that chap think I'm a quitter?" he exclaimed, aloud. "No, sir; not on your life! I'll play the game to the end." A heavy load of anxiety seemed to instantly take wing. The grim, set expression about the first baseman's lips relaxed. He walked with a springy step to his study table and plumped himself down on a chair before it. "No, Mr. Benny Wilkins, you'll never have a chance to say I have a yellow streak," he muttered. "I understand those chaps. Work to beat the band to scare a fellow off the team, and when he does call him a quitter." Once more Tom plunged into his studies, thinking his doubts and perplexities were entirely cleared away. As he picked up a Latin grammar, however, the mocking cries of "Vanitas!--Vanitas!" which of late had become more frequent popped into his head. "Van-i-tas!" he repeated, slowly. He raised his elbow on the table; his chin dropped into the palm of his hand. "And I heard that 'Crackers' Brown said I was a conceited specimen, if there ever was one. It's all a mistake. I never was either vain or conceited. Still----" Tom paused. He was studying hard to view himself and his conduct from the disinterested standpoint of a spectator. He strove to reconstruct scenes and incidents about the ball field. Yes; perhaps his remarks to the "Pie-eaters and doughnut crowd" had carried a note of egotism, which, at the time, he never suspected. He had talked in a "big" fashion, too, about what he expected the nine to do on the diamond. It was pretty hard to throw the cold light of analysis upon himself; yet, once started, he continued relentlessly. At last Tom leaned back in his chair with a sigh. A smile played about his mouth. The flood of thoughts brought him to a better understanding of himself than he had ever before possessed. He realized now how easy it must have been for the boys to think him a shallow boaster. "Maybe this hasn't been such a bad thing, after all," he reflected. "Even Dave, I remember, has looked at me in a queer way once in a while. I'll be a bit more careful what I say from now on. As for all those howling rooters, they'll never get me going again. And Benny can keep right on yelling his 'butterfingers' and 'bonehead' in that little piping voice of his until it goes on strike."