“What’re you doing?” he asked uninterestedly. There was, however, no reply from the window-seat, possibly because Jimmy’s tones had been too faint to reach there. After a moment Jimmy turned his head and stared across a pile of books on the study table at the three or four inches of Dudley’s head that were visible. Then:
“Dud!” he bawled resentfully.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing, I asked you.”
“Oh, me? Oh, just trying to dope out some of this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Stuff about pitching. How to hold the ball, you know.”
“Oh!” Jimmy subsided again and another period of silence followed. Then:
“You don’t expect to play baseball for a while, do you?” he asked lazily. “You’d better study how to throw a snowball!” He chuckled faintly at his joke.
“It isn’t so long now,” responded Dud soberly. “They’re going to call candidates the twenty-first.”