regret to say
I'm one of the lot."

The boy who answered to the name of Owen turned red at hearing this
honest praise on the part of his fellow students of Scranton High;
but his eyes sparkled with genuine pleasure at the same time.

A bunch of well-grown and athletic-looking high-school boys had left
the green campus, with its historical fence, behind them, and were on
their way home. It was in the neighborhood of two o'clock, with
school over for the day.

Just as one of them had said, a drizzly rain in the morning had
spoiled all chance for that day of doing any practice in the way of
playing ball. Mr. Leonard, second principal of the Scranton schools
under Dr. Carmack (who was also county supervisor, with dominion over
the Allandale and Belleville schools), had consented to act as coach
to the baseball team this season. He was a Princeton grad. and had
gained quite some little fame as a member of the Tiger nine that swept
Yale off its feet one great year.

Besides Owen Dugdale, there were "Just" Smith, Thad Stevens, Hugh
Morgan, Kenneth Kinkaid and Horatio Juggins in the bunch that started
off from the school grounds in company, though they would presently
break away as they neared their several homes.

"Just" Smith had another name, for he had been christened Justin;
but he himself, in answering to the calls for Smith, would always
call out "Just Smith, that's all," and in the course of time it clung
to him like a leech.

Kenneth Kinkaid, too, was known far and wide as "K.K.," which of
course was only an abbreviation of his name. Some said he was a
great admirer of Lord Kitchener, who had recently lost his life
on the sea when the vessel on which he had started for Russia was
sunk by a German mine or submarine; and that Kenneth eagerly took
advantage of his initials, being similar to those of Kitchener of
Khartoum fame.

Horatio Juggins was an elongated chap whose specialty, besides capturing
balloon fliers out in right field with wonderful celerity, consisted
in great throwing to the home plate, and also some slugging when at bat.

Thad Stevens was the catcher, and a good one at that, everybody seemed
to believe. He, too, could take his part in a "swat-fest" when a
rally was needed to pull the Scranton boys out of a bad hole. Thad
had always been a close chum of the captain of the team, Hugh Morgan.
Together they had passed through quite a number of camp outings, and
were said to be like twins, s