CHAPTER XI.

Kess as a “Dictograph.”

THE pasty-faced youth who took a seat on the table and sat swinging his legs while he fished out of his pocket a gold-mounted cigarette case, angrily resented the imputation of Bully Carson.

“Aw, cut it out!” he snarled nastily. “My sister is too nice a girl to have comments made about her by a low bruiser like you!”

Bully Carson’s face flamed as red as his necktie; the veins on his forehead started, his hands closed into maullike fists, and he stepped forward; yet instantly he checked himself, and rattled out a wheezing laugh. He could not afford to offend this young fellow.

“Forget it!” he said in a tone of hoarse apology. “I didn’t mean nothin’, and, of course, I knew it wasn’t so even when I said it; I was only in a manner suggestin’ what others may think.”

Robert Realf stared at him repellently.

“Since you forgot yourself, and said that, I’ll simply explain that my sister is visiting with Nellie Stanley, at Mrs. Winfield’s, just as she did last winter. You know that Bob Stanley is a student in the academy here, and is her brother, and both Nellie and my sister are friends of Mrs. Winfield. Besides, _I’m_ down here with her. We’ve got money to travel ’round with, and go where we like, when we want to; more money than _you_ will ever see, Carson, though you cheat and steal for a hundred years.”

“Forget it!” said Carson, though the blood was in his face. “I didn’t mean anything at all, as I told you. Of course, I was too fresh.”

Then he mumbled something about having had a drink too much, which was the cause of it.

Kess was so interested that he almost forgot the sinister touch of the man behind him; for Carson’s intimation had been that Rhoda Realf was at Fardale in the hope that she was here to get to see Chip Merriwell.

Kess knew all about the rather furious love affair between Chip and Rhoda, which had begun down in Santa Fe, when her wealthy father was down there looking at mining claims, and Chip was assisting his Uncle Dick, who was the mine investigator. It had been transferred to Fardale, when Chip was there for a Christmas vacation and Rhoda was at Mrs. Winfield’s with Nellie Stanley over the Christmas holidays.

The Realfs lived in Cambridge, and Kess recalled that once, at least, Chip had gone there, presumably to see Rhoda. And now apparently just because another girl had come on the scene, that pleasant affair was ended. Or was it ended? Kess did not know.

“Nodt for me idt vouldt nodt,” he thought; “I haf more _stay_-bility. Budt uff gourse, vhen I fall in lofe mit dot girl vhich she iss really a poy——”

Though the flare of a quarrel was over, the talk was still going on, and he laid his ear to the floor to give close heed to it.

“Carson iss back down so kvick dhere vill be no fighdt; he knows he musdt be nice to gedt money oudt uff dot veller. So now vot iss nexdt?”

Robert Realf was with that coterie, Kess believed, for the reason that on his previous visit to Fardale he had been an out-and-out and violent enemy to Chip Merriwell.

The conversation at first was rambling. There was so much smoking that soon the air was heavy and dense; now and then there was a clinking of glasses. Dickey entered occasionally, but did not tarry; though it was late, he had to be out in front, presiding over his cigar counter.

It was so apparent that these fellows had gathered solely for the sake of conviviality and the tang of adventure which was a part of these forbidden visits to Dickey’s that Kess was disappointed. He seemed to be wasting his time and taking a risk for nothing; and the touch of that man against the wall behind him, with the belief that he was the Hindu murderer, armed and deadly, was not soothing. Villum wanted to scramble forth and announce loudly that the Hindu was there, and was afraid to do it.

He became interested again when the talk dealt with affairs at the Fardale school. These things could not be touched without bringing in Chip and his friends. Kess glowed with indignation as he listened.

“Oh, Chip is merely showing a sample of the Merriwell jealousy,” said the Duke. “Until Kadir Dhin came, he was Gunn’s pet, and it hurts him to lose that place.”

“That’s the whole history of the Merriwells at Fardale,” said another. “They’ve got to run things. When they can’t use a man, they try to break him. Their friends are idiots like Clancy and Kess, who are always willing to praise everything they do. I’m sick of it.”

Kess began to breathe so heavily that he was in danger of being heard, when, by pressing his face hard against the floor, he tried to see the face of the speaker.

“Idt’s yoost Avery. He ton’dt coundt.”

Bronson Avery was notorious as the Duke’s echo. He, too, had come from Brightwood the year before, with the Duke; hence, with the older students they were hardly considered true Fardale men.

The miscellaneous gabble, filled with envious little stabs at fellows they did not like, brought in Chip Merriwell inevitably, and led slowly up to a discussion of means to get even with Chip, or block and thwart him. The real bitterness of the speakers came forth. They were wild to take Chip down and desperate as to the means to be adopted.

“It seems to me, donchuknow,” drawled the Duke, “that we can easily go farther; by which I mean, things have turned out so that we can drive him from Fardale.”

“Uh-huh! So dot _you_ can be der headt uff der adledtic pitzness,” Villum grumbled so recklessly in his anger that if there had not been a good deal of moving about and noise in the room he would have been heard. “You skink, dot iss alvays vot you t’ink uff since you haf gome here!”

“Colonel Gunn,” said the Duke, “is beginning to get Merriwell’s right measure. He sees that Merriwell is trying to ruin Kadir Dhin, simply because Kadir Dhin refused to be walked on by that crowd. The whole thing started, you remember, when Kess insultingly shouldered into Kadir Dhin, and our friend here resented it and tried to teach the Dutchman that he couldn’t carry off a thing like that. And Chip, you know, backing his chum, proceeded to knock Kadir Dhin down right there. It’s the Merriwell way, don’t you know. Now he’s trying to ruin Kadir Dhin.”

“That’s right,” Carson said. “I’ve had experience, even though I ain’t in Fardale. I went to jail once through Chip’s blabbin’, and if he could ’a’ done it he’d ’a’ sent me to the penitentiary. Of course, I’ve got to keep on the right side o’ the law, but I’d like to hit him hard.”

“You came back at him rather handsomely, donchuknow,” said the Duke, with an air of pleasing condescension; “but the way it ended it only gave him a chance to make the claim that our friend Kadir Dhin is standing in with this mysterious Hindu, who is said to be round here, and who is cutting up such queer pranks, donchuknow, that it’s hard work to believe in them.”

“He’s been saying something _new_ about me?” Kadir Dhin said, flaming.

“He says, I’m told, that this Hindu—if the rascal really exists, and is your uncle, I beg your pardon!—he says the Hindu couldn’t have got hold of a Fardale uniform if _you_ hadn’t assisted him; and that he couldn’t have pulled off that trunk trick, either, without your aid.”

The tense look that had come to the face of Kadir Dhin softened, and he relaxed his strained attitude and dropped back into his chair. For an instant it seemed an explosion would come; but all he said, in a weak voice, was:

“Oh, well, let him talk! The more he talks against me the more he will hurt himself with Colonel Gunn. It’s known everywhere that the barracks have been burglarized and uniforms stolen.”

“By careful work we can create a prejudice against him among the students who do not like his high-and-mighty ways, donchuknow,” the Duke urged, “and among those who will be inclined to sympathize with Kadir Dhin. We can also put through some scheme to blacken him so in the eyes of Colonel Gunn that he will be thrown out of Fardale.”

“That’s right,” said Avery. “Gunn is sore on him on account of what has happened to Kadir Dhin, remember, and that feeling can be increased.”

“What is this plan?” growled Carson. “Put it on exhibition!”

The Duke laughed softly. He could be very pleasant, when he dropped his stilted manners and his air of superiority.

“A thought has just come to me”—it had been in his mind all day—“that if you want to make sure that Chip Merriwell goes out of Fardale, it can be worked by Kadir Dhin. He is quite a hypnotist——”

“I do very little at it—know very little about it,” Kadir Dhin hastily corrected.

The Duke laughed again and lifted his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Gunn told me that this uncle of yours who slew Miss Maitland’s father in France was a wonderful hypnotist. And more than once you have given little exhibitions to amuse the fellows, showing that you have that power to a certain degree.”

“I’m a mere amateur,” said Kadir Dhin.

“But you could put this over, donchuknow. I’m sure. And it would be a deathblow to Merriwell. Get him into conversation in some quiet place and so get hypnotic control of him. This should be in the evening. Then stain his face to the hue of yours, and send him sneaking into Colonel Gunn’s under instructions to try to kidnap Rose Maitland. Hypnotized, he would obey you, and he would not remember that you had ever even spoken to him about it. Colonel Gunn could be posted, tipped off to the fact, that Merriwell was to make this effort, and that it was for the purpose of damaging you, Kadir Dhin; he could be made to think that Merriwell, so disguised, was putting a fake attempt over against the girl, and intended to be seen, so that _you_ would be accused of it.

“Suppose that Colonel Gunn caught Chip Merriwell trying to do a thing like that? What?”

“Wow!” rumbled Carson.

“He would last at Fardale just as long as a snowball in August. It could be made to appear that these other efforts against the young lady had been made by Merriwell to ruin the reputation of Kadir Dhin. Some scheme, eh?”

But Kadir Dhin did not rise to it.

“I’m only an amateur,” he said; “I couldn’t do it.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” said the Duke smoothly. “But you can see how it would finish Merriwell. His excuses that he didn’t know what he was doing wouldn’t go, if Gunn were primed in advance to expect him.”

“Why don’t you get up a plan to beat him to pieces?” said Carson, expressing the bruiser in him. “Fix it so’s the blame’ll be on him; and then when he makes the crack you’ve planned for, sail in and jest put him to sleep. Then you’ve got your excuse ready, and what can be done about it? He was the aggressor.”

“Same old Carson,” commented the Duke, “always seeing blood. But that wouldn’t get him out of Fardale.”

“You see,” said Avery, trying to back the Duke. “Just putting him down for a few days or so wouldn’t do; he’d get over it and come back, and still be cock of the walk here; that’s what the Duke means.”

“I’ll say what I mean, Avery,” the Duke snapped. “I didn’t mean that. We simply want to get rid of the Merriwell influence at Fardale.”

Avery collapsed.

“I understand,” he said; “I beg your pardon!”

Kess hardly heard Carson’s words, he was thinking so intensely of the queer plan which the Duke had unfolded for Kadir Dhin.

“Uh-huh! Dot vos saidt for two ears more; der two ears uff der Hindu who iss pehindt me! Der Duke iss schmardt. He iss know der Hindu is in here. Idt vill gif dot Hindu—ouch, his knees iss now digging in my back!—idt vill gif him der itea uff idt. So he vill hypnotize my friendt Chip, unt all der resdt uff idt vill habben. I see I got to fighdt somepoty sooner; I got to fighdt dot Hindu who iss behint me to-night, and cabture him, unt stob der whole pitzness before idt sdarts. I am glad I haf came, unt I am vishing dot I tidn’t.”

“Another plan that has just come to me,” said the Duke, though he had thought it out earlier, “is to queer Merriwell with Gunn by getting him intoxicated. Two or three times the fellow has either been jagged or drugged—he claimed he was drugged; and if this is worked right, Gunn can be made to believe that he was drinking at those other times.

“You could work that trick, Bully, if you’d undertake it, donchuknow; and you could pay off some of those grudges. Hire a couple of fellows, you know the kind, to take Merriwell down to the Pavilion; hand them a bottle of liquor, and tell them they’ll be well paid for forcing him to drink it. When he’s good and soused let Gunn know about it and see him in that fix. Eh, Carson?”

Carson’s eyes began to shine.

“I’d as soon do it myself as not,” he boasted. “S’pose he claimed afterward that I made him drink it, would anybody believe him?”

The Duke smiled indulgently.

“You’re rather in the heavyweight class, I admit; but could you do it alone? Merriwell is some scrapper. If you try it, you’d better have some competent help handy. The best plan is to send others to do it, and keep out of sight yourself.”

But nothing seemed to materialize. The Duke had as many plans as he had fingers; but always there was something, usually a question of the risk, which kept them from full acceptance.

“I guess there isn’t any one here with nerve enough to go up against Merriwell,” he said. “I’ll have to undertake something myself.”

“Oh, you foxy gran’pa!” Kess was thinking. “You know dot you ar-re delling der veller under here mit me all der t’ings vot he could do. Unt I haf now got to cabture him, pefore he can. Vhen idt cames, idt vill be anodder tog fighdt, I pet you!”