Mr. Moseley pursed his lips and considered the matter ponderously. He
regarded it as ill befitting an instructor of youth to dispose of any
subject in words of less than three syllables.
"Your protege, Judge Hollis, is an ambiguous proposition. He possesses
invention and originality, but he is sadly lacking in sustained
concentration."
"But if he studies," persisted the judge, "you think he may win it?"
Mr. Moseley wrinkled his brows and looked as if he were solving a
problem in Euclid. "Probably," he admitted; "but there is a most
insidious enemy with which he has to contend."
"An enemy?" repeated the judge, anxiously.
"My dear sir," said Mr. Moseley, sinking his voice to husky solemnity,
"the boy is stung by the tarantula of athletics!"
It was all too true. The Ambiguous Proposition had found, soon after
reaching Clayton, that base-ball was what he had been waiting for all
his life. It was what he had been born for, what he had crossed the
ocean for, and what he would gladly have died for.
There could have been no surer proof of his growing power of
concentration than that he kept a firm grasp on his academy work
during these trying days. It was a hand-to-hand fight with the great
mass of knowledge that had been accumulating at such a cruel rate
during the years he had spent out of school.
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