“Wouldn’t the fellows laugh me off the diamond?”
“I’d like to see them do it!” exclaimed Whistle-Breeches fiercely.
“If you can’t play, after you show that you can still pitch as good as before, Cap and I won’t be on the team,” declared Pete with energy.
“Oh, I’m not going to act that way about it,” spoke Bill, but there was a more hopeful look on his face.
A little later he was again being put through the eyesight test. Mr. Somnus, as he preferred to be called, was in his element. He had a very good set of instruments, and he very soon demonstrated that he knew his business.
“Ha! Hum!” he exclaimed from time to time, as he made test after test, and jotted down the results of some calculations on paper. “I find that you will have to have a very peculiar pair of lens,” he said. “I haven’t them, but I can get them for you.”
“And will the defect in my eyes be corrected?” asked Bill eagerly.
“You’ll never know you had it,” was the confident answer. “The injury was a peculiar one, involving, as the other doctor told you, one of the optic nerves. It may pass away at any time, but while it exists it must be corrected. Glasses will do it, and inside of a week I predict that you will pitch as well as before. Shall I make the glasses?”
“Yes!” fairly shouted Bill. “I don’t care what they cost.”
The details were soon arranged. Mr. Somnus knew of an establishment where lens for glasses were ground, and he undertook to procure them for Bill. He would return with them in a few days, he said, and adjust them in a proper frame—a frame that would admit of rough play.