ever have driven me to slip
into 'cits.' and sneak off the post in that fashion."

"I can quite believe that," nodded Dick.

"Well, it---it was a girl, of course," confessed "Durry."

"You know, cadets have a habit of being interested in girls, and
this girl means everything to me. She's up in Newburgh, and was
ill. I thought she was more ill than she really was. But I knew
that I could hardly get official permission to go and see her,
so---so I chanced it and went without leave. I wouldn't have
done such a thing under any other circumstances."

"Did the young lady recover?" asked Prescott with deep interest.

"Oh, yes; I dragged her to the hop the other night. She was stepping
around the hall with another fellow, for one of the dances, and
that was how I came to be out in the air alone. But I'll look
for both you and Holmesy at practice this afternoon," ended "Durry,"
hastening away.

"Go to a diamond try-out?" asked Greg when Dick broached the subject.

"Of course I will, and crazy over the chance. All that has held me
back so far, old ramrod, was the fact that you hadn't been invited.
But now that has all been changed."

When the diamond squad reported, Lieutenant Lawrence, the head
baseball coach, ordered the young men outdoors to the field.

"Come over here, please, Prescott and Holmes," called the coach,
who had been conferring in low tones with "Durry."

"What positions do you two feel that you would be at your best in?"

"Why, we have conceit enough, sir, to think that we might make
at least a half-way battery," smiled Dick.

"Battery, eh?" repeated Lieutenant Lawrence. "Good enough! Get
out and do it. Durville, you're one of the real batsmen. Run
out there to the home plate, and see whether Prescott and Holmes
can put anything past you."

How good it felt to be in field clothes again! And both Greg
and Dick wore on the breasts of their sweaters the Army "A," won
by making the football eleven the year before.

Dick fingered the ball carefully while Greg was trotting away
to place behind the home plate. Lieutenant Lawrence went more
deliberately, but took his place where the umpire would have stood
in a game.

"What kind of a ball do you like best, Durry?" asked Prescott,
smilingly.

"A medium slow one, close to the end of the stick, about here,"
replied Durville.

"I'll try to give you something else, then," chuckled Dick.

And give the batsman something else was just what h