postmortem of the day's game out in front of the Parker Hotel,
which is our leading hostelry. The postoffice receipts record for
our town was broken during the months of June, July, and August.

Mrs. Freddy Van Dyne started the trouble by having the team
over to dinner, "Pug" Coulan and all. After all, why not? No
foreign and impecunious princes penetrate as far inland as our
town. They get only as far as New York, or Newport, where they are
gobbled up by many-moneyed matrons. If Mrs. Freddy Van Dyne found
the supply of available lions limited, why should she not try to
content herself with a jackal or so?

Ivy was asked. Until then she had contented herself with
gazing at her hero. She had become such a hardened baseball fan
that she followed the game with a score card, accurately jotting
down every play, and keeping her watch open on her knee.

She sat next to Rudie at dinner. Before she had nibbled her
second salted almond, Ivy Keller and Rudie Schlachweiler understood
each other. Rudie illustrated certain plays by drawing lines on
the table-cloth with his knife and Ivy gazed, wide-eyed, and
allowed her soup to grow cold.

The first night that Rudie called, Pa Keller thought it a
great joke. He sat out on the porch with Rudie and Ivy and talked
baseball, and got up to show Rudie how he could have got the goat
of that Keokuk catcher if only he had tried one of his famous
open-faced throws. Rudie looked politely interested, and laughed
in all the right places. But Ivy didn't need to pretend. Rudie
Schlachweiler spelled baseball to her. She did not think of her