As with all other mortals of divers pursuits, these ball tossers can stand just so much baiting and then they bristle like an old cock when young chantecler invades his yard reaching for high C. With plenty of such good natured badinage and the dissemination of unlimited sunshine, the owners and managers of the clubs composing the Inter-lake League finished the early spring meeting convened to arrange the games schedule for the current season, making due allowance for national holidays and discussing railway fares with ticket agents Jack Campbell, Albert Craig and J. B. Doran. This league comprised the Brantford Green Socks, Knotty Lee’s Hamilton Bengal Tigers, Saints of St. Thomas, home town of Bob. Emslie, National League umpire, and Gladstone Graney with Lajoie’s Cleveland “Naps”; also the Cockneys of London, where Pittsburg Pirate George Gibson dwells neighborly beside the railway triumvirate Messrs. Ernie Ruse, Harry MacCallum and Hubert Hays, with Ottawas of Ottawa and Peterborough Blue Jays completing the roster. The rivalry and fortunes of the bustling sextette, as will later be seen, ebbed and flowed between Brantford, the hub of two thirds of the circuit, presided over by president Silent Thomas Nelson, C.P.A., G.T.R., nick-named the “Sphinx” for his wisdom and ability to guard a secret deal, as far east as Ottawa on the big river where Claudius O’Toole had cajoled and berated his henchmen into winning the bunting the season before. When the present Mr. O’Toole was yet a squalling infant the suffering, patient sponsors saw to it that his name was set down in the vestry register as “Claudius” with the saint’s name Dominick added, but the creepy nickname “Spider” automatically clung to “Claude” like the monkey man to the neck of the famous Sinbad the sailor who figured in Arabian Nights. The youth grew rangy, with long shifty legs, and his arms, ornamented with grapplers, seemingly as numerous and resourceful as the tentacles of a cuttle fish, were the wonder and pride of the freshmen at St. Augustine’s Seminary who doted on his prowess and perennial good nature.