Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/163

 "Prof. Banning tells me you're down to about so this month in history and civics."

"What are you doing?" the shortstop demanded hotly; "checking up on me?"

"Checking up on your classroom average," the coach answered. "Why shouldn't I? Just now it's as important as your fielding or batting averages. When you stand up to recite you're pinch hitting for the nine. You've been doing some rotten pinch hitting—I'll say that for you. You're in a slump. You've got to pull yourself together and come out of it."

Jennings had put the case in the language of baseball. The argument touched Martin where he was weakest. The anger died out of his eyes, slowly, slowly—but it died.

"I never thought of it as pinch-hitting," he said gruffly. "I don't like study: a page of this to-day, a page of that to-morrow, over and over and over again. It's stupid stuff. My father insists that I go through high school and I'm going to go through just as easily as I can. He knows I don't like to pore over lessons."

"Suppose you didn't like balls batted to your left," said the coach. "What would you do in that case?"

"I'd have somebody bat to my left side until I could take anything that came to my left."