“Oh, I’m not scared!” Tracy replied, laughing uneasily. “I’ll stand by you.”
“All right,” answered Joe gravely. “That’ll be safest.”
There came a knock at the door, and Joe shouted, “Come in!” When he saw who his caller was he arose from the window-seat and stepped forward.
“How are you, Weatherby? Want to see me?”
“Yes, if you have a minute to spare.” Jack looked calmly at the occupant of the Morris chair, and Joe understood.
“Certainly,” he answered. “Sit down.” Then, “I don’t like to put you out, old man,” he said, turning to Tracy, who had so far made no move toward withdrawing, “but I guess I’ll have to ask you to excuse me a moment.”
“That’s all right,” replied Tracy, lazily pulling himself out of his seat and staring insolently at the newcomer. “I’m a bit particular, anyway.” He lounged to the door, carefully avoiding contact with Jack. “See you in the morning,” he added. “So long.”
When the door had closed, Joe glanced at the caller, instinctively framing an apology for the insult. But Jack’s countenance gave no indication that he had even heard it. Joe marveled and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down, won’t you?” he asked politely.
The other shook his head.
“No, thanks. What I’ve got to say will take but a minute,” he answered calmly.
CHAPTER V
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE YARD
“Oh,” said Joe, vaguely, “all right.” He wondered, rather uncomfortably, what was coming.
“It’s just this,” Jack continued. “I tried to get a word with you in the cage, but there was always some one around. I wanted to know if – if after what happened the other day at the river, you have any objection to my trying for the nine. You see,” he went on, hurriedly, “I know what the fellows call me, and I thought maybe you’d rather I didn’t come out. You just tell me, you know, and it’ll be all right. I won’t show up again.”
“I see,” said Joe. “No, I haven’t the least objection; in fact, I’m glad to have you. I don’t pretend to judge that – affair at the river, Weatherby; it’s none of my business. And the fact is, I want every man that can play baseball to report for practise. That’s plain, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’ll keep on then for the present.”
“Of course, Weatherby, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be made welcome by the other candidates; you can understand that. They may act unpleasantly, or say ugly things. I’m not able to restrain them. You’ll have to risk that, you know.”
“I understand,” answered Jack calmly. “They’ve already called me a coward. I don’t believe they can say anything worse.”
“No, I guess not.” Joe looked curiously at the other. Then, “I say, Weatherby,” he exclaimed, impulsively, “what was the trouble, anyway, the other day? I’ve only heard one side of it, and I fancy there’s another, eh?”
“I’d rather not talk about it, if you please,” answered Jack coldly.
“Oh, all right! I beg pardon.” Joe felt somewhat huffed. His sympathy for the other was for the moment snuffed out. Jack moved toward the door.
“By the way,” said Joe, in business-like tones, “I think you told me you’d played ball some. Where was it?”
“At home, on the high-school team. I played three years.”
“What position?”
“I pitched the last year. Before that I played in the outfield, generally at right.”
“I see.” Joe’s hopes of the other’s usefulness dwindled. He had seen a good many cases of ambitious freshmen whose belief in themselves as pitchers was not justified by subsequent events. Every year there reported for practise a dozen or so of hopeful youngsters, who firmly believed themselves capable of filling all such important positions as pitcher and catcher, merely on the strength of having played such positions with more or less success on some fourth- or fifth-rate team. Joe mentally assigned Jack to this class of deluded ones.
“Well,” he said, “of course you may count on having a fair trying-out, but I wouldn’t hope for too much. You see, a fellow has to be something of an expert to get in the box here; it’s different from playing on a high-school team. Besides, we’re rather well fixed for pitchers: there’s Gilberth and King and Knox, all of whom are first-class men. Of course, we want new material wherever we can find it, and if you prove that you can pitch good ball we’ll give you all the chance you want. But if I were you I’d try for something else this spring, for some position in the field. We’re long on pitchers and short on out-fielders. Of course, you could keep your hand in at twirling; there’d be plenty of opportunity for that at practise.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get,” answered Jack. “I don’t lay any claim to being a wonder at pitching. I was the best we had in Auburn, but, of course, that doesn’t mean very much.”
“Auburn, Maine? Do you live there?”
“Two miles outside of town.”
“Is that so? Maybe you know a cousin of mine there, Billy Cromwell? His father has a big tannery. He graduated from here three years ago this coming spring.”
“I know him quite well,” replied Jack, smiling for the first time since he had entered the study. “It was Billy who persuaded me to come here. He used to tell me about Erskine a good deal. Of course, he’s seven or eight years older than I am, but he was always very nice to me.”
“Think of that!” said Joe. “The idea of you being a friend of Billy’s! He’s fine chap, is Billy. What’s he doing now?”
“Why, he’s assistant superintendent. Every one likes him very much, and he’s awfully smart, I guess. Well, I’ll report again to-morrow. I’m glad I saw you, and – thank you.”
“Of course you’ll report. And if I can help you at any time, just let me know.” He opened the door and Jack passed out. “See you to-morrow, Weatherby.”
“Yes. Good afternoon.”
When Jack reached the head of the stairs he heard Joe’s voice again and paused.
“I say, Weatherby,” the baseball captain was calling, “come around and see me sometimes. I want to hear more about Billy.”
“Thank you,” was the non-committal reply.
Joe closed the door, took up a Greek book, and went back to the window-seat. When he had found his place he looked at it frowningly a moment. “‘Thank you,’ says he,” he muttered. “As much as to say, ‘I’m hanged if I do!’ That youngster is a puzzle; worse than this chump, Pausanias!”
The warm spell of Thursday and Friday had been succeeded by a drop in temperature that had converted the pools into sheets of ice. The board-walks and the paths still made treacherous going, and when, after leaving Sessons Hall, in which Joe Perkins roomed, Jack had several times narrowly avoided breaking his neck, he left the paths and struck off across the glistening snow toward the lower end of the yard. It was almost dusk, and a cold, nipping wind from the north made him turn up the collar of his jacket and walk briskly. There were but few fellows in sight, and he was glad of it. To be sure, by this time he should have been inured to the silently expressed contempt which he met on every side, to the barely audible whispers that greeted his appearance at class, to the meaning smiles which he often intercepted as they passed from one neighbor to another. Yet despite that he was schooling himself to bear all these things calmly, and with no outward sign of the sting they inflicted, he was not yet quite master of himself, and was grateful that the coming darkness and the well-nigh empty yard promised him present surcease from his trials.
Until he had entered Joe Perkins’s study a quarter