"Don't mention it. We're trying to forget baseball," he answered, wearily.
"What's the matter? Wouldn't Bob Somers take you on his team?"
Victor Collins' voice was delicate and refined; but there was something in his manner which impressed the boys with the idea that perhaps he wasn't quite so easy as they had supposed.
"I never tried to get on," grumbled Phelps. "I had better sense."
"I thought those chaps were all corking good players," said Victor. "From the way Clifton talked last fall you might have expected by this time to see accounts of Bob Somers' ball nine in the Chicago papers."
"Is that what he called it?" asked Jim.
"Sure! Why?"
"You mustn't even whisper such a thing before 'em now," snapped Aleck Parks. "It's the Kingswood High baseball team. But the club is run by the Ramblers, just the same."
"I fear there are mutterings of discontent here," said Captain Bunderley. He looked sharply at the trio. "I thought I'd find all the boys red-hot for Bob Somers and his friends. I won't hear a word against them from anybody—understand that. They're all good square fellows with level heads."
Captain Bunderley's bluff style of talking effectually squelched Aleck Parks; and, having learned all he cared to know, the latter soon found a convenient excuse for leaving the party.