lled Dick hurriedly.

"Well?" growled Teall, rubbing his shins.

"Did you enjoy your little trip?"

"My---little---trip?" repeated Ted wonderingly. "Oh---pshaw!
Of course you'd think of something like that to say."

"If you're lamed any by your little trip," offered Tom, "I'll
leave left field to do your base running for you this afternoon."

"Yah! I'll bet you would," jeered Teall. "And if I let you,
I'd be down on the score card for three less than no runs at all."

"You will, anyway," said Reade gravely.

"Somehow," broke in Dan, "I feel unusually happy this afternoon."

"That's because you know we're going to win to-day," laughed Dick.

"Oh, that's a part of it, yes," Dalzell agreed. "But the real
cause of my happy feeling is that I'm going to find out what the
man on the clubhouse steps said. That's what I've been aching
to know ever since some time last winter."

"The time will pass shortly now, Danny Grin," Prescott remarked
comfortingly.

By this time a score of spectators had arrived. Then came a few
High School boys, among them Ben Tozier, who was again to umpire.
"Tozier, what's the High School delegation for?" Dan asked.
"To find out who'll be handy for the High School nine next year?"

"Perhaps," Ben replied gravely. "There's some good, young material
in the two nines, all right. The trouble is that a lot of you
fellows won't go to High School."

"All of Dick & Co. are going to attend High School," Dave proudly
informed Tozier.

Two more High School boys now appeared who were not as welcome.
Fred Ripley and Bert Dodge walked on to the field side by side.

"What are they doing here?" asked Dave.

"We are in luck," spoke up Tom, "if they haven't come here to
start mischief."

"If they do, if they even try it," Dick predicted grimly, "they'll
be the ones out of luck. We'll turn the boys of two Grammar Schools
loose on them and run them off the field."

Down the street sounded a noise that could come from only one
cause. Central Grammar School had "let out." All the boys and
many of the girls were now hurrying toward the ball field. It
was natural to take the biggest sort of interest in this game,
which was to decide which school was the "champion."

"I'm sorry to see your crowd in such high spirits, Prescott,"
said Ted Teall, coming up. "It'll be all the harder for Central
Grammar to bear when the score is announced."

"You're sure of winning, then, Teall?" Dick inquired.

"Absolut