Jack hesitated, waiting for the other to take his departure. King looked at him quizzically.
“Look here, Weatherby, don’t be so beastly snobbish,” he expostulated with a touch of impatience. “If you object to my company back to the Yard, just say so, but don’t look as though I was too low down to associate with.”
Jack colored and looked distressed.
“I didn’t mean to, honestly!” he protested. “Of course, I don’t object to your company. I—I only thought——”
“Well, come on, then.” They went down the steps together, just as the door opened to emit a handful of players. “Don’t get it into your head, Weatherby, that we’re all cads,” King continued, “just because Gilberth occasionally acts like one. The fact is, there are plenty of fellows back there who are quite ready to be decent if you’ll give them half a chance. The trouble is, though, you look as though you didn’t care a continental for anybody. Perhaps you don’t; but it isn’t flattering, you see. I dare say it sounds pretty cheeky for me to talk like this to you, especially as we’ve never been properly introduced and haven’t spoken before, but I’ve been here a year longer than you have, and I know how easy it is to make mistakes. And it seems to me you’re making one.”
“I don’t think you’re cheeky,” answered Jack quite humbly. “I don’t mean to have folks think I’m—think I’m indifferent, either.”
“That’s all right, then,” replied King heartily. “They say you’re coming out as a pitcher,” he went on, changing the subject, to Jack’s relief. “Bissell was telling me to-day.”
“I’ve been pitching some on the second nine,” answered Jack.
“Where did you play before you came to college?” asked the other. Jack told him about the high-school nine at Auburn, and the rest of the way back the talk remained on baseball matters. He parted from his new acquaintance at the corner of the Yard, and went on alone through a soft, spring-like twilight to his room. He had gained one more of the enemy to his side, he reflected, and that alone was a good day’s work. But besides that he had been taken on to the varsity squad, and altogether the day was a memorable one. He climbed the stairs happily, the sting of the incident in the locker-house no longer felt.