company sent him over here, and it was
understood he'd stay several years. I don't think the war could make any
difference."

"That's why you're here, then, is it? I used to wonder why you went to
school over here instead of in America."

"Yes. My father and mother didn't want me to be so far from them. So they
brought me along. I was awfully sorry at first, but now it doesn't seem so
bad."

"I should think not!" said Dick, indignantly. "I should think anyone would
be mighty glad of a chance to come to school over here instead of in
America! Why, you don't even play cricket over there, I've been told!"

"No, but we play baseball," said Harry, his eyes shining. "I really think I
miss that more than anything else here in England. Cricket's all right--if
you can't play baseball. It's a good enough game."

"You can play," admitted Dick, rather grudgingly. "When you bowl, you've
got some queer way of making the ball seem to bend--"

"I put a curve on it, that's all!" said Harry, with a laugh. "If you'd ever
played baseball, you'd understand that easily enough. See? You hold the
ball like this--so that your fingers give it a spin as it leaves your
hand."

And he demonstrated for his English friend's benefit the way the ball is
held to produce an out-curve.

"Your bowlers here don't seem to do that--though they do make the ball
break after it hits the ground. But the way I manage it, you see, is to
throw a ball that doesn't hit the ground in front of the bat at all, but
curves in. If you don't hit at it, it will hit the stumps and bowl you out;
if you do hit, you're likely to send it straight up in the air, so that
some fielder can catch it."

"I see," said Dick. "Well, I suppose it's all right, but it doesn't seem
quite fair."

Harry laughed, but didn't try to explain the point further. He liked Dick
immensely; Dick was the first friend he had made in England, and the best,
so far. It was Dick who had tried to get him to join the Boy Scouts, and
who had been immensely surprised to find that Harry was already a scout.
Harry, indeed, had done two years of scouting in America; he had been one
of the first members of a troop in his home town, and had won a number of
merit badges. He was a first-class scout, and, had he stayed with his
troop, would certainly have become a patrol leader. So he had had no
trouble in getting admission to the patrol to which Dick belonged.

It had been hard for Harry, when his father's bu