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.