Frank Merriwell's Fun; Or, Fearless and True — Text and Context

ard by the little group of laughing students that was passing down the walk in front of Battell, one of the halls at Yale.

“Don’t nothithe them,” lisped Lew Veazie, turning his back on the passing group. “They are verwy cheap.”

“Be generous, be generous!” said Rupert Chickering, with clasped hands. “We should pity them, instead of speaking of them with scorn. They can’t help being what they are.”

“Your campaign against Merriwell does not seem to thrive?” said Hull, addressing Gene Skelding, who was leaning against the fence and scowling blackly at the passing students.

“I’m waiting,” muttered Gene. “I’ll get him yet.”

“There are others who are waiting,” said Ives impatiently. “That fellow Badger must have given up his ambition to down Merriwell.”

“Don’t mention him!” cried Ollie Lord, standing on his tiptoes in an attempt to look tall and imposing, although he was barely five feet in height. “He insulted me! I felt like killing him on the spot!”

“You mutht westwain your angwy pathions, deah boy,” simpered Lew. “You thould not allow yourthelf to become dangerous.”

The idea of Ollie becoming very dangerous was extremely ludicrous, but nobody in the group cracked a smile. The Chickering crowd took themselves seriously.

“Badger,” said Ives, “is a bluff. But I did think that Bertrand Defarge might take some of the wind out of Merriwell’s sails.”

“Defarge got it in the neck,” muttered Skelding, “and he’s as quiet as a sick kitten now.”

“They say Merriwell played with him after the fashion of a cat playing with a mouse,” spoke Ives, gently caressing his bang, which fell in a roll over his forehead quite to his eyebrows.

The trouble with the Frenchman was that he thought Merriwell knew nothing at all about fencing,” declared Skelding.

“Is there anything in the world that Merriwell knows nothing at all about?” exclaimed Tilton Hull, looking over the top of his wonderfully high collar despairingly.

“Sure thing,” nodded Skelding, scowling. “His weak point will be found some time, and then he’ll go down with a crash. Every man has a weakness, you know.”

“I take extheptionth!” cried Lew Veazie, with great vigor. “I weally defy anybody to dithcover my weak point.”

“Claret punch,” said Ollie Lord.

“Well, you can’t thay a word,” grinned Lew.

Merriwell and his party had passed on. Rattleton had called attention to Chickering’s crowd, but Frank did not even deign to glance at the group by the fence.

“They are not worth noticing,” he said. “Don’t mind them, anybody.”

“I’d like to eat that little runt Veazie!” exclaimed Bink Stubbs.

“Well, he’d make you sick if you did!” returned Danny Griswold.

“We were speaking of the money question,” grunted Browning. “Which side of that question are you on, Jones?”

“The outside,” answered Dismal sadly. “Haven’t received a remittance from the governor since Jonah swallowed the whale.”

“You’re in hard luck.”

“Will a tenner help you out?” asked Frank.

“All right,” said Merry; “come up to the room. Come along, all of you.”

“There’s another fellow,” grunted Browning, pointing to a student who was sitting all alone on the end of the fence in front of Durfee, “who looks as if he might be on the outside of the money question.”

The person referred to looked forlorn and dejected.

“I’ve noticed him often,” said Merry. “He never seems to travel with anybody.”

“You mean that nobody travels with him,” said Rattleton.

“It’s all the same. He doesn’t associate with other students.”

“On the contrary, other students do not associate with him.”

“He has a bad name,” said Griswold.

“You don’t mean to say that that has anything to do with the fact that he has no associates?”

“Well, the name seems to fit him.”

“They say his father has served a term in the jug for larceny.”

Merry was interested.

“And is that the reason why he has no associates here?”

“Then there are others?”

“His nature seems to fit his name.”

“Things have a habit of disappearing when he’s round.”

“What! Do you mean that he’s light-fingered?”

“Well, nobody’s ever caught him yet, but he has that reputation.”

Frank’s interest increased.

“You say that his father has served time for larceny, and that this poor fellow has a bad name? If nobody has caught him at anything crooked, why should he be ostracized?”

“Well, the fellows here don’t care about associating with anybody who has such a father.”