CHAPTER XVI.

DUNTON’S DISCOMFITURE.

Frank did not wait to be attacked. He made a flying leap at Dunton, caught the fellow with his coat halfway off, and flung him clean across the bed, so that his head was rammed against the wall with a thud that seemed to shake the building.

Then he went at Sargent.

Sargent turned to meet him, but did not get round quick enough.

Frank slammed him up against the door so that it nearly burst open.

“Glad you gentlemen called,” he declared, gently. “Make yourselves at home. I shall do my best to entertain you.”

He had Sargent by the neck, and he thumped the fellow’s head against the door so hard that the panel was cracked.

“Wow!” cried Dunton’s astonished friend. “I didn’t come up to fight with you!”

“Oh, you didn’t?”

“No.”

“Why did you come?”

“To see fair play.”

“Was that it?”

“Yes. Ouch! You hurt!”

“Well, you don’t seem to be fighting much,” observed Frank, disgustedly. “Get in under cover out of the way.”

He caught Sargent by the slack of his trousers and the collar and fired him under the bed just as Dunton crawled off it.

Sargent went in till nothing but his heels stuck out, and there he lay, making no effort to retreat, evidently being well satisfied to get out of the way like that, for it had dawned on him that he and Dunton were “up against it.”

Dunton was raving mad. He literally frothed at the mouth as he came off the bed and leaped on the ex-Yale athlete.

“I’ll kill you!” he howled.

“Will you?” inquired Merry, calmly. “I don’t think!”

Dunton tried to get him by the throat. For some moments there was a terrific struggle, during which a chair and a stand were overturned.

Dunton was nerved by such fury that he made a desperate antagonist for a time, but he could not hold out against Merriwell.

Seeing he was about to get the worst of it, the fellow tried to get some kind of weapon out of his pocket.

“Would you!” cried Frank, catching his wrist.

“In a minute!” returned the other.

“You’re pretty bad.”

“You’ll find out!”

Bang! bang! bang!

Somebody was pounding on the door.

“What’s going on in there?” cried a voice. “What are you doing, Merriwell?”

It was Havener.

“Oh, I am practicing a little,” answered Frank.

“Let me in.”

“The door is locked, and my hands are full.”

“Hands full of what?”

“Man. Got one under the bed, and the other is—going.”

With a twist and a snap, Frank whirled Dunton about, caught him up off his feet, sent him shooting under the bed by the side of Sargent.

Then he quickly unlocked the door.

“Walk in, Mr. Havener,” he politely invited.

The stage-manager did so, looking around in wonder.

“Where’s the man?” he asked.

“There.”

Frank pointed, and his finger indicated two pairs of feet sticking out from under the bed.

Havener stared.

“What!” he gasped.

“Came in to do me up,” Merry explained.

“But—but—what are they doing under the bed?”

“By gum!” chuckled the voice of Ephraim Gallup, who was now standing in the open door. “I guess they’re huntin’ fer him under the bed. Haw! haw! haw!”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Havener, and he was a man who seldom smiled.

One pair of feet began to kick, and the owner struggled to get out from beneath the bed.

“Come out, both of you,” commanded Havener.

They did so, one at a time, and two more crestfallen, sheepish, disgusted-looking fellows never showed their faces.

“I didn’t come here to fight,” Sargent hastened to again declare.

Dunton said nothing, for he could find no words to express his feelings.

Ephraim Gallup continued to roar with laughter, and all the noise had brought several more of the company to the spot, together with other guests of the hotel.

Dunton ground his teeth together when he realized what a spectacle he was, and the one look he gave Frank Merriwell was murderous. Then he made a break for the door.

“Let me out!” he snarled.

“Go it!” cried Ephraim. “I don’t wonder yeou feel like runnin’! By gum! if I was yeou, I’d feel like findin’ a hole somewhere and crawlin’ inter it. Them fellers came up here to lick Frank Merriwell in his room,” he explained, as Sargent hastened after his chum. “Gosh all hemlock! They couldn’t ’a’ done it if they’d bin ten of ’um, ’stead of two.”

The proprietor came up, and Merriwell apologized for the disturbance. Havener, however, was forced to pacify the man, which he finally succeeded in doing, with the assistance of Hawkins, who had found the soft side of the hotel keeper at an early date.

“Why haven’t you been down to supper, Merriwell?” asked the stage-manager.

“No time,” answered Merry, shortly. “Studying. I won’t eat till after the show.”

“Can’t get anything in this hotel at that hour.”

“Then I’ll patronize a lunch cart. Can’t spend time to eat. Those fellows cut me out of fifteen minutes. Send somebody to tell me when it’s necessary for me to go to the theater.”

“All right,” promised Havener, as he hustled everybody out of the room. “I don’t think you’ll be disturbed again.”

Closing the door, Frank picked up the manuscript and went on studying as if nothing had happened. In a moment he dismissed the encounter from his mind and gave his entire attention to the lines he was learning.

Frank continued to study till Hans came to tell him that the band was going to play before the theater, and the company was going over to make up.

Frank found Havener waiting in the office of the hotel.

“How are you making it?” asked the stage-manager.

“Fairly well,” answered Frank, modestly.

“If you do as well as I hope, you will save us from making a big fizzle to-night.”

“I shall do my level best.”

They went over to the theater, and Frank immediately sought his dressing room to make up.

Old Dan Lee was there.

“Cassie told me I’d better help you make up, Merriwell,” said the veteran actor.

“Thank you, Mr. Lee,” smiled Frank, “but I believe I can do the trick without assistance.”

“All right, if you say so; but I’ll stay and put on the finishing touches.”

“I haven’t a make-up box. Shall have to borrow from somebody.”

“Here,” said Lee, “use what you want out of this one. It belonged to that fellow Storms, but he will do his making up in jail for some time.”

Frank began work with the grease paint, and then Dunton came in. He stopped and glared at Merry, astonished to find him in that dressing room.

“What the——” he began, and then stopped short.

A moment later Dunton made a dive forward and caught up the make-up box Frank was using.

“Well, talk about crust!” he snarled; “this beats! Drop that stick of grease paint!”

Frank turned and surveyed him, quietly asking:

“Why?”

“It doesn’t belong to you.”

“Does it belong to you?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that?”

“Because it does.”

“It was Storms’.”

“What of that?”

“He left it.”

“He gave it to me.”

“That’s a lie!” declared Dan Lee, who had been watching everything. “Storms didn’t give it to anybody, but you took it. Before that you bummed make-up off everybody else, because you spent all your money for drinks, and didn’t have so much as a piece of coco-butter of your own.”

“Oh, dry up!” snapped Dunton. “You’re always poking your nose into something that doesn’t concern you.”

“This business concerns me, for I told Merriwell to use that stuff, and by the gods! he’s going to use it.”

“He shan’t!”

“He shall!”

The old actor slammed the dressing-room door and placed his back against it.

“You’re not going to take that box out of here,” he declared. “Put it down till Merriwell is through with it.”

“I won’t!”

“Then Merriwell will take it away from you.”

“Let him try it!”

“Go ahead, Merriwell,” directed old Dan; “and thump him if he don’t give it up instanter.”

Frank started toward Dunton, who backed away, holding onto the box.

“Keep off!” grated the fellow.

“Give it up!” commanded Frank.

Dunton backed against the partition, and Frank confronted him. The fellow remembered how he had been handled not very long before in Merriwell’s room, and he scarcely wished to fall into Frank’s hands again.

“You can’t have it!” he declared, weakening somewhat.

“Give it up!” repeated Merry, sternly.

Then, like a flash, Dunton lifted the box and hurled it at the head of the youth he hated.

Frank dodged, and the box flew past his head, striking the partition and falling to the floor, where its contents, powder, paint, puffs, and so forth, flew in every direction.

Dan Lee uttered an exclamation of anger.

“Now thump him, Merriwell—thump him hard!” cried the old actor. “He deserves it!”

“No,” said Frank, scornfully. “I should be ashamed to do it. He is too contemptible.”

Then he turned and stooped to gather up whatever he could of the contents of the box.

Dunton fancied he saw his opportunity.

“Look out!”

The warning came from old Dan just as Dunton leaped onto Frank’s shoulders.

Merry was crushed to the floor, but Dan Lee rushed forward and caught Dunton by the collar, dragging him off his intended victim.

Up to his feet shot Frank, and he caught hold of his enemy.

“Open the door!”

Lee hastened to do so, and Merriwell lost no time in throwing Dunton out of the dressing room, being unable to resist the temptation to give him a boost with his toe.

The fellow was sent sprawling, his undignified exit being witnessed by several members of the company.

Frank turned back and gathered up such of the contents of the box as he could, and then resumed the work of making up.

He did it rapidly, closely watched by old Dan. In a very short time Frank had finished.

“There,” he said, turning to be inspected, “now I will listen to your suggestions, Mr. Lee.”

“Ain’t got any to make,” said old Dan. “You’re all right; but where’d you learn to make up?”

“Oh, I’ve watched the others.”

“Watching wouldn’t teach you to put it on like that without making a single mistake. You’ve had some practice. Where?”

“A little at college.”

“College?”

“Yes.”

“What college?”

“Yale.”

“Did you go to Yale?”

“I did.”

“Never knew it before. Why didn’t you say something about it?”

“Why should I?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but you never say anything about yourself.”

“I don’t think much of fellows who are forever telling something about themselves.”

“No more do I,” nodded old Dan. “You’re all right. But how did you learn to make up at college?”

“We had amateur theatricals.”

“Yes, but——”

“Of course we had to make up.”

“But you were greenies.”

“Sure.”

“How could you learn to do it like an expert?”

“Got a book of instructions and studied it till I knew it by heart.”

“Huah! Don’t take much stock in such books. Fellow’s got to learn by experience.”

“I got some experience.”

“How?”

“Well, the others found I knew something about it, and I had to make up the whole company. In that way I got a chance to try my hand at all sorts of characters, for some of the fellows impersonated old men, some brigands, some girls, and so forth.”

“Well,” said old Dan, “I rather think you have a way of catching onto things in a hurry. You’re all right. What are you going to do now?”

“Study till it is time to go on.”

Frank was to appear in the first act in ordinary street clothes, so his costume for that act gave him no trouble.

He took the manuscript and sat down in a corner, where he went at it again, and he did not even hear the band when it played its first piece in the theater. He was aroused by Havener, who came in and said:

“I’ll have to take that manuscript now, Merriwell. The curtain goes up in two minutes.”