"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.