and passionately recited his wrongs. Yet even as he spoke he felt that his father would say, "Nonsense, nonsense; there must be no more of this."
There was an interval of silence after he had finished.
"About those girls calling after you . . ." Mr. Quinby began.
The tone caused him to lift his head.
"I wouldn't give it a thought, Bert. That's just girl stuff. A fellow never pays any attention to girls."
"Bert!" The sound of it was sweet. There and then his father became a gorgeous personage, a king among men, and the seeds of hero worship were sown in the boy's soul.
In the days that followed a rich and fine intimacy sprang up between them. He learned things that were new, strange and romantic. His father had once been a baseball pitcher of great skill; there were newspaper clippings, yellow with age, in a scrapbook to prove it. Bert read these clippings time and again, and then took them out to Bill Harrison and to Dolf Muller.
"Your father was some pitcher," Dolf said admiringly, and found a remnant of a cracker in his pocket and ate it.
Bert's heart was filled with a glowing pride. When school reopened in September and he entered the eighth grade, a new world seemed at the same time to open to him. As soon as the study
