CHAPTER XXII.

THE SCAR-FACED ATHLETE.

Packard started to his feet and turned. He saw a well-dressed, splendidly formed youth. But it was the face of the newcomer that instantly attracted the notice of the medical student.

Such a face! It was wrinkled and scarred and disfigured with red and purple discolorations. Plainly it had been burned in the most horrible manner.

The stranger paused, but Defarge immediately said:

“Come right in, Hawkins. This is the gentleman I wished you to meet.”

The stranger closed the door and came forward. There was something suggestive of confidence and power in his walk, in his every movement. Packard immediately realized that he was in the presence of a remarkable man.

“Mr. Packard, this is my friend Mr. Hawkins,” said Defarge.

Hawkins put out his hand, which the medical student accepted. The grip of the scar-faced youth was soft as velvet, yet hard as iron. His hand was the hand of a trained athlete, with every inch of him in perfect condition. More and more Packard realized that the stranger was uncommon.

“I have just been telling Mr. Packard of you,” said Defarge. “That is, I mentioned you to him. Mr. Packard is a medico.”

“Indeed?” said the stranger, in a voice that was pleasant, yet suggested power. “Why is it that medical students seem prone to indulge in stimulants? Is it because they acquire the habit by taking liquor to brace their nerves before going into the dissecting-room?”

He had looked at Packard with a pair of intensely piercing eyes, and Roland shivered a bit before that deep stare.

“I presume you judge by the decanter here,” said Packard, with a motion toward the table. “Well, your friend Defarge put that there.”

“I judge from your appearance,” said the newcomer frankly. “Your face shows that you drink more than is good for you.”

Packard frowned. He did not fancy being told his failings thus directly by a stranger.

“That is my business,” he said. “I presume I have a right to drink as much as I like!”

“No, you have not.”

Roland was astounded.

“Have not?” he gasped.

“I said that.”

“Why not?”

“Because any man who has a taste for liquor, and drinks as much as he likes, makes himself troublesome to others in some way, and no man has a right to trouble others unnecessarily. Besides, you set a bad example for other students. Although we may not know it, every one of us does good, or works harm, by our example.”

Packard broke into a harsh laugh.

“What the devil have you here, Defarge?” he cried. “Is this a temperance crank?”

The effect of this speech on the stranger was not discernible, for his scarred face remained strangely inexpressive.

“I am no crank,” he said; “but I simply tell you the truth. Ever since the world began, the man who has dared to tell the truth has been called a crank. Lots of these cranks have suffered and died for their convictions. Many of them were put to death because they believed and preached things which the world soon after accepted as scientific truths.”

Packard gave himself a shake. Surely this was a remarkable chap. All at once Roland seized the decanter and poured out a glass of whisky, which he offered to the scar-faced youth.

“Here,” he said, “take this. It will cheer you up. You must be dead sore on yourself. I’ll drink with you; Defarge will join us. Let’s be agreeable.”

The one invited shook his head.

“No,” he said; “I am one of those peculiar persons who practises what he preaches.”

“You do not drink?”

“No.”

“Not even beer?”

“Not a drop of anything that has alcohol in it. I am an athlete, and no man who seeks to reach his highest ability as an athlete should deliberately poison himself with alcohol.”

“But a little is good for a man. At least, it is good just when he is on the point of making some great exertion.”

“It is not!” positively declared the other. “It is the very worst thing he can take.”

“Oh, get out! Anybody knows it gives him a feeling of strength.”

“A false feeling, sir. Tests and investigations have shown that a man can lift greater weights and perform severer feats of strength when he has not taken a single drop of liquor than he can when he has taken a moderate amount to stimulate him. The liquor makes him believe himself stronger and makes him want to display his power, but every swallow robs him of vital energy. Now, in your case, your face plainly shows that you are swiftly becoming an habitual drinker. You must stop it soon, or you will go straight to the devil, sir.”

Packard had been standing with the glass of whisky in his hand. As the man talked, Roland observed his hand beginning to shake.

“Well,” he said, “at least it is good to steady the nerves.” And he dashed off the fiery stuff at one great swallow.

“That’s another mistaken belief,” declared Hawkins quietly. “See! are your nerves any steadier than mine? You drink; I do not. Are your nerves steadier to-day than they were before you began to drink? Can you not remember the time when your hand never trembled?”

“Yes, but——”

“But now your nerves shake at times, and you drink whisky to steady them. The whisky has weakened them already by putting a strain upon them, and that is why they shake. When you drink more whisky you steady them with a renewed strain; but that strain simply results eventually in making them still weaker. Being a student of medicine, you ought to know that.”

Packard did know it, but it seemed that he had never thought of it seriously before. He knew plenty of medical students who were steady drinkers, and they seemed careless of the final result. They were a jovial set of fellows now; but Packard suddenly realized that the future must hold disappointment and failure for many of them.

For one single instant a grisly phantom of future ruin rose before Packard himself, but he quickly brushed it aside, forcing a laugh.

“I believe in living while we live,” he declared. “What’s the use of denying ourselves every good thing of life in order to live a year or two longer?”

“Every good thing of life! My dear Mr. Packard, you are making one of the greatest errors a man can make. Look at me. I deny myself no good thing of life. Whisky is not good. Alcohol is not good in any form. It is only the boy with the inherited taste for it that ever relishes his first drink. To a perfectly healthy fellow that first drink is repulsive. You know it, Mr. Packard. You say you believe in living and enjoying life. Man, you do not know what it is to enjoy life! You cannot know what it is as long as you do not feel perfect health pulsing all through your body. No drinker ever feels like that. Under the influence of the stuff he takes into his stomach, he may feel good for a short time, but the reaction always follows, and he suffers for his short enjoyment. It is not a case of shortening life a year or two, but most drinkers shorten it from ten to thirty years. And they die wretched wrecks. What’s the use to talk about it?”

“Didn’t you ever drink?” asked Roland wonderingly.

“Yes.”

“Ah!”

“Long ago I was fool enough to do so. I was a boy then, and I thought it manly. But I learned my lesson and learned it well. See this face! It marks me for life and makes me an object of repulsion. If I had never touched liquor, I doubt if I should have been thus disfigured now. I entered a burning building, in an attempt to rescue a man. Another boy was with me. We flung open the door of a room, and fire shot out and enveloped me. It seemed as if my very breath took flame. I fell to the floor, and the other chap dragged me away.”

“Wasn’t he burned?”

“No.”

“It just happened that way. It was fate.”

“It seemed to be punishment. I hated the other fellow, and I had tried to do him harm. He was an athletic chap, and he would not drink. I hated him because he seemed to think himself too good to drink. He had been given a medal for saving a life. I got hold of that medal. Another boy was accused of stealing it. As I did not like the other fellow, I should have remained quiet and let things go; but when I was burned I thought my time had come. I confessed. Of course, all the odium of the affair fell on me when I recovered, and I was compelled to leave school. But I swore then and there that I would never touch a drink again, and that I would become an athlete capable of defeating the fellow I had tried to down. From that day to this I have worked steadily to build myself up and reach a state of perfection. I believe I have succeeded, and now I am ready for the test. All I ask is to meet my old enemy in any kind of a contest.”

“And this enemy of whom you speak—what is his name?”

“Frank Merriwell!” declared the youthful athlete with the scarred face.