“Because I won’t take them until Saturday morning, or just before the game, and it will be too late to get another pair. Or, better still, I can take out the special lenses that are in the frames, and substitute others. Then he won’t suspect anything, he’ll go to the box, pitch so rotten that Graydon will have to take him out, and you’ll go in. Bill won’t know whether it’s the glasses, or whether his eyes have gone back on him again. How’s that for a trick?” “It’s all right I guess,” was the hesitating answer. “I rather hate to be a party to it,” went on the pitcher, who was not a bad chap at heart. “But—” “But he had no right to come here and supplant you,” put in Bondy. “No, that’s right. Well, can you get the glasses from his room?” “Sure, and I’ll arrange to have other lenses to slip in them. I’ll get the size, and they’re easy to change. I was close to him to-day, and I saw how the rubber frames were made. I guess Bill won’t be such a wonderful pitcher when I get through with him,” and Bondy chuckled as he and his fellow conspirator turned around and walked back toward school. CHAPTER XVI CAUGHT There was an air of subdued excitement all about Westfield, that extended even to good old Dr. Burton. He even found it rather difficult to apply himself to translating some early Assyrian tablets into modern Hebrew as a preliminary to rendering them into ancient Chinese. The various members of the faculty found their students paying rather less than the usual attention to the lectures, and in one quiz, when Cap Smith was asked concerning the raising of an unknown quantity to the nth power his answer was: “He’s out on first!” “Doubtless true, but unfortunately Westfield has no chair for the science of applied baseball,” answered the professor as the laugh went rippling around the room. But the spirit of the game was in the air, it hung about the school buildings, lingered in the dormitories, and the very smell of chemicals in the laboratory seemed replaced by the odor of crushed green grass, the whiff of leather and the sound of the explosions of the miniature Prince Rupert’s drops, as the science teacher demonstrated the effect of a sudden change in the strain of a congealed body seemed to the lads to be the blows of the bat on a ball. Over on the diamond, which had been as carefully groomed as a horse before he is led out to try for the blue ribbon, were any number of eager enthusiasts practicing. There were talks between the coach and captain, anxious conferences with the manager, and on every side could be seen lads in their uniforms carefully looking after balls, bats, masks or chest protectors. Some were tightening the laces of their shoes, others mending ripped gloves, while Bill Smith had indulged in the luxury of a new toe plate. For the next day would mark the opening of the Interscholastic league, and the first big game—that with Tuckerton—was to be played.