spare bats in toward the bench, where the red-headed bat boy seized them and lined them up neatly with the rest of the timber lying in a row in front of the Yankee dugout. Ball players, one of the most superstitious classes of human beings in the world, believe bad luck will befall the team which does not arrange its bats tidily before its bench.
Speedy stood a moment and watched Babe foul two balls, then hit one with his well-known full, graceful swing on a lazy fly out to deep center field. Speedy looked around with lively interest. He recognized several of the players, even among the gray-shirted Pittsburgh athletes in their dugout on the other side of the plate. He even began to entertain hopes that he might be invited to view the game from the Yankee bench. Imagine—the World's series and he, Speedy Swift, seeing it from the dugout, hearing all the inside dope, rubbing elbows with Ruth and the rest.
But these hopes were short-lived. A—short, wrinkled-looking little man in uniform, evidently the manager of the team, accosted him.
"You'll have to get out of here," he said in a not unkindly voice. "The game's about to start. You've got a ticket, haven't you?"
"Sure," said Speedy.
The little man held open the gate opening up from the field into an aisle leading into the grandstand seats and waited for Speedy to exit. Speedy went. Almost immediately he was met by an usher.
"Where's your ticket?" asked that individual.
Speedy felt confidently into his pocket, where he
