I cannot leave them thus without telling the reader that they survived the almost fatal ninth, when, with the score 3-2 against, two out and a man on first, Wagsniff came once more to the bat and, swinging cunningly at the very first ball pitched to him by the famous Mr. Blatherton, lifted it over the centrefielder's head and trotted around the bases and, grinning like a Hallowe'en pumpkin, came romping home.
At dinner that night Williams senior said suddenly:
"Fitz, what you do want to do?"
A stranger would have thought that Fitz was being asked to choose between a theatre and a roof-garden, but Fitz knew that an entirely different question was involved in those casually spoken words. He was being asked off-hand to state off-hand what he was going to do with his young life. But he had his answer waiting.
"I want to see the world," he said.
Williams senior, as a rule, thought things out in his own mind and did not press for explanations. But on the present occasion he asked:
"As how?"
Fitz smiled very youthfully and winningly.
"I've seen some of it," he said, "right side up. Now I want to have a look upside-down. If I go into something of yours—as myself—I don't get a show. I'm marked. The other clerks would swipe to me, and the heads would credit me with brains before I showed whether I had any or not. I want you to get me a job in Wall Street—under any other name than my own—except Percy"—they both laughed—"your first name and mamma's maiden name would do—James Holden. And nobody here knows me by sight, I've been abroad so much; and it seems to me I'd get an honest point of view and find out if I was any good or not, and if I could get myself liked for myself or not."
"Well," said his father; "well, that's an idea, anyhow."