"That would not make the least difference to me, my dear fellaw,"
declared Willis, who was too dense to catch the sarcasm. "I have nevah twaveled awound with him."
"I have noticed that," grinned Tad. "You have permitted him to avoid you in a most astonishing manner."
"What have you against Merriwell, Thornton?" asked Parker. "I didn"t know you were so down on him. You both played on the football team last fall."
"And Merriwell made a record for himself by winning the game for Yale,"
said Andy Emery.
Thornton laughed sneeringly, showing his perfect white teeth.
"Merriwell is always making a record for himself at something," he returned. "I"d rather have his luck than be born rich. If any other fellow on the team had obtained the ball at that particular moment, he could have gone through Princeton"s line as well as Merriwell did, for Yale"s interference was simply marvelous, and a clear road was given the runner."
Emery shook his head.
"I think your memory is slightly at fault, old man," he said. "I am sure Merriwell bowled over at least one man, and dodged one or two others, besides going down the field like a wild engine, with Princeton"s fastest runner at his heels and unable to tackle him. Oh, it is not all luck with Merriwell, Thornton, as you would acknowledge, if you were not prejudiced."
"You talk as if you are stuck on the fellow!" snarled Tom, in his most cutting manner.
"But you know I am not. I have held away--have had nothing to do with him."
"And that is the reason why I invited you down here to-night."
"So? Well, I thought there was something more in the wind than a simple discussion of athletics. What"s up?"
"Don"t be in a hurry. We"ll come to that presently. Have another drink all around. This is on me. Push the b.u.t.ton, Horner. I want to order more fizz."
"This is too much!" sighed Tad, as he pressed the b.u.t.ton that communicated with an electric bell at the bar. "If we do not let up, we"ll be in rocky shape in the morning."
The waiter appeared, and the wine was ordered. When the waiter went out, after serving the order, he left the door communicating with the next room standing open.
"Gentlemen," cried Thornton, lifting his gla.s.s of sparkling "fizz,"
"here"s to a break in Merriwell"s luck. May it come soon."
All drank.
"I can"t quite agree with Thornton that it is all luck," said Puss Parker, lowering his half-emptied gla.s.s. "It is not luck that enables Merriwell to pitch on the ball team."
"Oh, I don"t know!" exclaimed Tom. "If Heffiner"s arm had not been in bad condition, Merriwell would not have obtained the opportunity when he did. If he had not obtained it then, he might not have obtained it at all, for there are several other fellows who can twirl quite as well as he."
"They think they can, but I have my doubts."
This kind of talk did not satisfy Thornton, and he snapped:
"I must say I didn"t suppose you were one of that cad"s sycophants, Parker! I fancied you had more stamina than that. Next thing you"ll be saying that when his horse won the "free for all" at Mystic Park it was something more than luck."
"From what I have heard, I presume there was a great deal of luck connected with that affair, but that is outside college sports. I did not see the race, but I have heard that all sorts of tricks were tried to put Merriwell"s horse out of the race."
"So his friends have reported; but I take no stock in it. If he ever enters that horse in another race he will lose his socks betting on the beast."
"We were talking of rowing a short time ago," said Emery. "Let"s return to our mutton. Thornton was kicking because Merriwell has made a try for the eight, and seems to stand a good show of getting there. I don"t see where Thornton"s growl comes in. He can"t pull an oar."
"But Flemming can," came quickly from Tom; "and he was sure of a position on the eight till Merriwell went for a place. Like Pierson, who captained the ball team last season, Collingwood seems to be stuck on Merriwell. That"s why he has thrown Flemming down."
"But I thought Merriwell"s ideas about rowing did not correspond at all with Collingwood"s ideas?" said Tad Horner, with unusual gravity. "When Merriwell was captain of the freshman crew, he introduced the Oxford oar and the Oxford stroke. He actually drilled a lot of dummies into the use of the oar and into something like the genuine English stroke. Everybody acknowledged it was something marvelous, and one newspaper reporter had the nerve to say that the freshmen had given the "varsity crew a pointer."
"Oh, yes," grated Thornton, bitterly. "The newspapers have advertised Merriwell at every opportunity. Remember what a howl they made when he stopped that runaway horse and rescued Fairfax Lee"s daughter. Any one would have thought the fellow had done a most marvelous thing, and since then he has been taken into the very swellest New Haven society, and he is lionized as if he were something more than a mere sn.o.b. It makes me sick!"
"There is still some mystery about the fellow," said Parker. "How did he happen to know so much about the Oxford stroke?"
"I"ve heard that he was at Oxford long enough to thoroughly acquaint himself with the English methods," answered Emery.
"And it has been reported that the fellow has traveled all over the world," said Horner. "His rooms are decorated with all sorts of strange weapons, trophies and skins of wild animals, which it is said he gathered in his travels."
"Bah!" sneered Thornton. "I have my doubts about his ever being at Oxford, and I take no stock at all in the rest of that guff. It is barely possible that he may have been over to England, but the yarn about his having traveled in South America, Africa and Europe, is the biggest sort of rot."
"Well, let it go as rot," said Horner; "you must acknowledge that he did something most astonishing with that freshman crew. We did not have the least idea in the world that they could beat us, but we were not in the race on the home stretch."
"Oh, we thought we had a soft thing, that"s all. If we"d dreamed we had a hard race coming, we"d won all right."
"That may be, but I am not so sure. Still, if Merriwell could do so much with a lot of freshmen, what might not be done if the same methods were used with the "varsity crew?"
"Bah!" cried Thornton again. "That sort of rot makes me sick! Bob Collingwood has his own ideas, and he will not accept suggestions from any one, although I think he was a fool to throw down Flemming for Merriwell. Flem did great work on the football team, and he is in condition to make a special effort at rowing this spring, while Merriwell is obliged to play ball as well."
"I don"t see how Merriwell does so many things and does them so well,"
confessed Tad Horner.
"Oh, he is one of the chaps who has the nerve to try anything, and will stumble through anything after a fashion. Nine times out of ten those fellows are never heard from after they leave college. The fellow who takes some branch of athletics at college and sticks to it is likely to select some line of business when he has graduated, and stick to that.
He is not diving into everything, and making a success of nothing."
"But Merriwell seemed to be diving into everything, and making a success of everything. He is put up differently than most fellows."
"He showed his caddishness in introducing the English oar and stroke when he was captain of the freshman crew. He would ape things English, and in that line he makes a failure, at least."
"By Jawve! that is wight, don"t yer "now," drawled Willis Paulding, who had visited London once on a time and endeavored to be "awfully English"
ever since. "He has not cawt the English air and expression, don"t yer understand. He--aw--makes a wegular failyaw of that, deah boys."
"Oh, say!" cried Tad Horner, "don"t pile on the agony quite so thickly, Paulding. It is nauseating!"
"Merriwell may not try to ape English manners and speech," said Thornton, "but he is a cad, just the same, and the friends he has made here at Yale are a lot of thin-blooded, white-livered creatures. Look at them! There is Bruce Browning, once called "King of the Soph.o.m.ores," but cowed and bested by Merriwell, to be afterward dropped a cla.s.s. There is Jack Diamond, a boastful Southerner. He forced Merriwell to fight, but fawned about Merriwell"s feet like a cur when whipped."
"You lie, sir!"
By the open door a supple, well-built, dark-faced lad sprang into the room. His eyes were flashing, and his teeth came together over his words with a click.
It was Jack Diamond himself!