Frank Merriwell's Fun: Fearless and True

“There’s Frank Merriwell and his set,” said Tilton Hull, with an effort to appear contemptuous.

“A nice lot of chumps they are!” exclaimed Julian Ives, speaking loudly, as if he wished to be heard 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.”