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there, Mrs. Saybolt came out to lend a hand. Rufus and Joey did not run because she had asked them here.
    "And this is the lad who loves music," she said in a deep, hearty voice. She really was not bad close to. She just didn't want people trying to sit in her hedge chairs. "Yes," she repeated, "it's a pleasure to see a boy his age who likes music that much," and she fastened her eyes on Rufus. "Before you go now, come in and hear my player piano for a while."
    Rufus looked at Joey. Mrs. Saybolt was inviting them into her house to hear the invisible piano player! He glowed. Joey did not look so happy at the thought. Today was his day for dusting the pews. But who could say no to Mrs. Saybolt? Since ordinarily she chased you away, yelling "Tiger!" after you, when she wanted to be nice you had to be nice to her. That's the way Joey figured anyway, so he and Rufus went indoors.
    Mrs. Saybolt preceded them, and Rufus observed that she had already told the invisible piano player to play. He was slightly disappointed, because he thought this time he might have seen the fellow hop out of his house with part of his cloak not on him. Then Rufus might have seen an arm or a leg. But no, the fellow was already playing by the time Joey and Rufus entered the parlor.
Poomp-ty, poomp!
    Mrs. Saybolt had a davenport instead of a couch or a sofa and Joey and Rufus sat on this. Mrs. Saybolt stood beside the piano and watched Rufus with an amiable smile.
    "Plays nice, doesn't it?"
    It!
thought Rufus.
    "Sure does," agreed Joey.
    "Now I'll play a march," she said. She pushed a button, opened a little hole over the piano, took out a roll, put another in, and pushed another valve. The music began again.
Rat-ta-tat! Boom! Boom!
    Rufus looked at this proceeding with unbelieving eyes. The invisible piano player had been very real to him. And now instead of there being an invisible piano player the thing worked by machinery! Rufus felt cheated.
    "Criminenty!" he exclaimed in disgust. "It's a machine. It's not an invisible piano player! Come on!" he said to Joe. "Let's go!"
    He tore out of the house and Joey followed him, giving Mrs. Saybolt an apologetic wave of the arm. They got their box and their wagon and teetered home with it, planning what they would do with such a good crate.
    Mrs. Saybolt never could get Rufus to come in and listen to her player piano again. She coaxed him with cookies for a while. Then she gave up. She decided she must have made a mistake about Rufus loving music so much. She soon fell into the habit of calling him "Tiger!" again and chasing him off her white sidewalk.
    As for Rufus, every time he went past that house and heard the piano playing his pulse beat very rapidly for a second as he thought of the invisible piano player, and then it calmed down completely when he reminded himself,
Oh, a machine!

4. Rufus and the Fatal Four

    Usually it made no difference whether or not Rufus was a left-handed person. In fact, now that the teacher had accepted this quirk in Rufus's makeup, it was only awkward to be left-handed when somebody wanted to shake his right hand. So far no left-handed person had tried to shake hands with Rufus. Rufus hoped to meet one someday and then they would have a good left-handed shake.
    But there was one occasion when it really was an asset to be left-handed, Rufus found. And that was in connection with the Fatal Four.
    For some time Rufus had been seeing "The F. F." on all of Janey's notebooks and on the brown covers of her grammar and arithmetic books. He asked Jane what it meant. Jane said it was a secret. However, if Rufus would not tell anybody, the initials stood for the Fatal Four. More than that she would not say. Rufus assumed it had something to do with pirates. Therefore, he was really surprised when Jane, in a mood of confidence, further enlightened him to the extent of revealing that the Fatal Four was the name of a baseball team she belonged to that could beat anybody.
    "Then," she went on