CHAPTER XXV

IN FRANK’S ROOM.

“I say, Merriwell,” cried Jack Ready, strolling into Frank’s room, his hat set rakishly over one ear and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, “do you know what they call a young black cat in England?”

“Why, I’ve been in England,” said Frank, rising from his open trunk, which he was packing, “but I don’t believe I can tell what they call a young black cat over there.”

“Why,” chuckled the visitor, with great satisfaction, “they call her ‘kitty, kitty,’ just the same as we do on this side of the water. Oh, Merry, you’re a good thing!”

Frank laughed heartily, Ready’s jovial mood being contagious.

“You’re steadily growing sharper and sharper, old man,” said Merry. “You’re becoming dangerous to fool with of late.”

“Oh, yes,” nodded Jack, striking a pose, with one hand thrust into the opening of his vest. “The mantle of Bink Stubbs hath descended upon me and I am ‘it.’ I am making enemies in a merry way with my persiflage. Sprung that on two other fellows this morning. One told me it was so old it had whiskers, while the other got his back up and wanted to t’ump me in my mild, blue eye. This being a practical joker is getting to be a great responsibility, and I feel the strain. I am glad vacation is at hand, as it will serve to give me a short breathing-spell. Packing your paper collars and pajamas? Leave to-morrow, I suppose? Whither do you fly?”

“Yes, I leave in the morning,” nodded Frank. “Got to run down to New York to attend to some business concerning my play, ‘True Blue.’”

“Which way after that?”

“Well, Starbright has invited me to visit him.”

“I’m another. Going to accept?”

“I may.”

“Then, by all the eternal gods of Olympus! I’m going to try to get round there myself. You hear me chirp! You catch the silvery cadence of my voice!”

“He invited you?”

“Did he? Why, he fell on my neck and wept like a brother at thoughts of parting. We mingled our weeps, and we spilled brine enough to start another ocean. It was sad, and touching, and sloppy. He said, ‘Ready, old man, I hate to leave you—alive.’ I said, ‘Starbright, my baby, you’re the only freshman for whom I entertain the slightest feeling of affection, and I’ve always felt for you—with a brickbat.’ It was a strange, weird spectacle—a soph and a freshie weeping in each other’s arms. Any minute I expected he would toss me down and jump on me, but he did nothing of the kind, and it has dawned on me that the fellow really likes me and really meant it when he invited me to run over and visit him with the rest of the gang during the holidays.”

“Did you accept?”

“Not on the spot; but now—now I know you are going—I may. Who’s going?”

“Well, I understand Browning is one—and Hodge.”

“Browning’s all right, but Hodge—well, he’s a good fighter when that is necessary, but he doesn’t add much jolliness to a gathering. A joke always seems to rub him the wrong way.”

There came a sound of many feet and voices outside, the door was flung open, and Bruce Browning came in, followed by Bart Hodge, Dick Starbright, Bert Dashleigh, and Greg Carker. Bruce made straight for a comfortable couch, on which he dropped, brought forth a clay pipe and began to fill it. The others greeted Merriwell, Hodge saying:

“Thought we’d come up, Frank, just to get the crowd together for a little while before we separate for the holidays. You don’t mind?”

“Fellows, I’m delighted to have you come in just like this,” declared Frank. “Make yourselves at home, every man of you.”

“That’s right,” said Ready, “if you can’t find chairs, sit right down on the carpet; it won’t hurt it much. What’s that thing you’re filling, Browning—a clay pipe? Ye gods and little fishes! How have the mighty fallen! I didn’t think you’d come down to that! How did it happen?”

“Well,” grunted Bruce, getting into a comfortable position, as he lighted the pipe, “you see even a clay pipe has its advantages.”

“What are they?”

“Why, if you let one fall on the pavement or a hard floor, you don’t have to bother to pick it up,” exclaimed the laziest man in Yale, causing a laugh at his expense.

“That surely is a bad case of ennui,” said Carker reprovingly.

“What’s that?” yawned Browning. “How do you define ennui?”

“I can define it,” declared Ready, at once. “It’s when you’re tired of doing nothing and too lazy to do something.”

“That’s what’s ailed Bruce ever since the football season closed,” nodded Frank. “I had begun to fancy that Bruce had reformed—that he’d put laziness behind him forever. Why, he trained like a slave, and he worked like a fiend to reduce flesh. He was in the very pink of condition the day he went onto the field in the Harvard game. Looked healthy and handsome.”

“Thanks,” rumbled the lazy giant. “Bow to the gentleman for me, please, Ready. It’s too much of a job for me to rise. I know I was a perfect Apollo, but the task of being an Apollo was too great a strain. I had to throw it up.”

“But not till we had downed Harvard beautifully,” said Starbright, his fair, handsome face glowing. “Oh, they thought they had us! They came mighty near it in the first half, and——”

“Gave me heart-disease,” put in Dashleigh. “I’ll never get over it. Sometimes I wake up nights now, yelling, ‘Three yards more and Harvard’ll have a touch-down! Hold ’em, boys—hold ’em!’”

“That was Bart’s constant cry,” said Browning. “He begged us separately and collectively to hold ’em, but the only thing that saved the day was Merry’s appearance on the field at the close of the game. They had us going all right in that half, and they’d have scored in another minute.”

“But you made a gallant fight,” said Frank, his eyes flashing—“a fight to be remembered always. I am proud of every man on the team.”

“Yah!” muttered Hodge sourly. “Are you proud of that dog Morgan? I don’t believe it!”

“In a certain way, I am proud of him,” asserted Merry positively.

“But you were ready to wring his everlasting neck a short time ago. You announced your intention of kicking him out of Yale.”

“And you could have done it, all right,” put in Carker. “He heard the rumbling of the approaching earthquake, and he——”

“Oh, choke that earthquake business!” cut in Ready. “Don’t use the expression; reserve it for your socialistic lectures.”

“Fellows,” said Frank, “I admit that I was ready and resolved to crush Dade Morgan a short time ago.”

“But you have not crushed him,” spoke Hodge. “Why was it? Tell us. We want to know.”

“I cannot explain everything, for it will take too much time if I do; but I will say this much, I discovered that Morgan was not wholly responsible for his actions toward me. Another will than his own controlled and directed him. This may seem too remarkable to be true, but it is a fact. The one who controlled him hated me with a hatred that only death could terminate. If Morgan rebelled, this monster put on the screws and forced his tool to perform his work. Mind you, I do not claim that Dade Morgan naturally would be perfect or even a fine fellow; but he was led to the very verge of murder by the wretch who impelled him to his acts. Morgan in his right mind and being his own master would never have gone that far.”

“Perhaps not,” muttered Hodge; “but I believe he’d do anything.”

“I think,” Merry pursued, “that there came a time when Morgan was anxious to cease troubling me. I have thought the whole matter over, and I have decided that I know when that time arrived. Then it was that the monster behind him put on the screws and forced him forward against his will.”

“And if you do not wind Morgan up,” said Dashleigh, “may not this same monster continue his dirty work?”

Frank shook his head, with a strange, grim smile of satisfaction.

“Neither Morgan nor myself will be troubled by him any more,” he declared. “That man is dead.”