Just then the door opened and Jimmy came out. Star drew back a step and Dud quickly shot the bolt again. Jimmy smiled sweetly and carelessly at Star. “Don’t be a grouch, old man,” he said. “There’s lots of water yet.”
Star fell back on his haughty attitude and observed Jimmy as from Olympian heights. Jimmy chuckled. “Great stuff, Star,” he approved. Then he nodded affably to the round-eyed Benson and took himself gracefully from sight. At that moment another cubicle emptied itself of its occupant and Star, swallowing his wrath, absent-mindedly entered it, leaving the two waiting youths to scowl blankly at the closed door. After a moment Benson ejaculated in a careful whisper: “Hog!” The other boy nodded agreement. “I thought he and Baker were going to scrap,” he confided sotto voce. “Gee, I wish they had. And I wish Baker had done him up! He’s just a big bluff, that’s what he is!” From the further cubicle came the sound of song. Dud was regaining his temper.
CHAPTER VI
FIRST PRACTICE
There was a large attendance at half-past three that afternoon in the baseball cage. Some forty-odd candidates, most of them last year’s first and second team members, had assembled for work, while fully as many others were on hand to watch proceedings. Not that anything very exciting promised, but it was a raw, uncomfortable sort of day outside and fellows were glad of any event that offered a half hour’s mild amusement. The cage was not a very ambitious affair, for it had been an after-thought and had been built after the building was erected and at a sacrifice of one of the two bowling alleys, which, thrown into the space formerly occupied by a storeroom, supplied area for a modest cage. It was large enough to throw at base distance in and to hold batting practice in if the batter didn’t attempt anything more than a tap. Also, of course, it made an excellent place for the pitchers to limber up.
Dud and Jimmy went over to the gymnasium together, for the latter had finally decided to try his luck with the first nine. When, having got into his gymnasium suit, Dud looked around for Jimmy, he was rather disconcerted to find himself confronting Starling Meyer across the bench. Dud didn’t feel so brave today, and would have been just as satisfied if he hadn’t run across the hockey star. But the latter only glared in a haughtily disgusted manner and turned his back, and Dud heaved a sigh of relief, not loud but fervent, and made his way unobtrusively out of the locker-room. He was careful to nod or speak to such fellows as he knew, although lots of times it took a good deal of courage. He was obeying Jimmy’s directions, however.
“Don’t wait for fellows to speak to you,” Jimmy had ordered. “Speak first. Don’t act as if you were afraid they wouldn’t know you, either. Just say, ‘Hello, Smith,’ sort of careless-like, or, if you don’t know them fairly well, just nod and smile. Don’t grin, smile. Like this.” And Jimmy turned the corners of his mouth up slightly and nodded his head very briefly. “Get the idea! ‘I know who you are, but I don’t recall the name.’ But don’t try that on the big fellows like—well, like Murtha and Trafford and those chaps. You want to be polite to them, sort of cordial, too. Only don’t let them think you’re trying to swipe.”
“Which I am,” Dud had interpolated a trifle bitterly.
“Not at all! You’re merely being—er—tactful. There’s a difference. Tact and diplomacy are great things, Dud. You want to practice ’em.”