Frank Merriwells Chums | Page 3

how it is you happened to let yourself be put back in recitations?"
"Oh, Old Gunn just put me back--that's all."
"But you are fully as good a scholar as I am, and you could have gone ahead into the first section if you had braced up."
"Perhaps so."
"I know it. You do not study."
"What's the use of boning all the time! I wasn't cut out for it."
"That's the only way to get ahead here."
"I don't care much about getting ahead. All I want is to pull through and graduate. Then I can go to college if I wish. These fellows who get the idea that they must dig, dig, dig here, just as they say they do at West Point, give me a pain. What is there to dig for? We're not working for commissions in the army."
"From your point of view, you put up a very good argument," admitted Frank; "but there's another side. It surely must be some satisfaction to graduate well up in your class, if not at the head. And then, the more a fellow learns here, the easier he will find the work after entering college."
"Work? Pshaw! There are not many fellows in colleges who are compelled to bone. I hate work! I thought you were the kind of a fellow who liked a little fun?"
"Well, you know I am. Haven't I always been in for sport?"
"But you're getting to be a regular plodder. You don't do a thing lately to keep your blood circulating."
"I am afraid you do too much that is contrary to rules, old man. For instance, where is it that you go so often nights, and stay till near morning?"
"I go out for a little sport," replied Bart, with a grim smile.
CHAPTER II.
A GHASTLY SUBJECT.
"But you know the consequences if you are caught," said Frank, warningly.
"Of course I do," nodded Bart, "but you must acknowledge there is not much danger that I shall be caught, as long as I make up a good dummy to leave in my place on the bed."
"Still, you may be."
"That's right, and there's where part of the sport comes in, as you ought to know, for you are quite a fellow to take chances yourself, Merriwell."
"That's right," admitted Frank. "It's in my blood, and I can't help it. Anything with a spice of risk or danger attracts and fascinates me."
"You are not in the habit of hesitating or being easily scared when there is some sport in the wind."
Frank smiled.
"I never have been," he admitted. "I have taken altogether too many risks in the past. A fellow has to sober down and straighten up if he means to do anything or be anything."
Bart made an impatient gesture.
"Any one would think you were a reformed toper, to hear you talk," he said, with a trace of a sneer.
"Not if they knew me," said Frank, quietly. "Whatever my faults may be, I never had any inclination to drink. I have had fellows tell me they did so for fun, but I have never been able to see the fun in it, and it surely is injurious and dangerous. I don't believe many young fellows like the taste of liquor. I don't. They drink it 'for fun,' and they keep on drinking it 'for fun' till a habit is formed, and they become drunkards. Now, I can find plenty of fun of a sort that will not harm me, or bring----"
"I thought you weren't going to preach," interrupted the dark-haired boy, impatiently. "Let me give you a text: 'Thou shalt not put an enemy into thy mouth to steal away thy brain,' or something of the sort. Now, go ahead and spout, old man."
Frank's face grew red, and he bit his lip. He saw that Hodge was in a most unpleasant humor, and so he forced a laugh.
"What's the matter with you to-day, Bart?" he asked. "I haven't seen you this way for a long time."
"Oh, there's nothing the matter."
"It must be staying up nights. Where do you go?"
"If you want to come along, and have some fun, I will show you to-night."
Frank hesitated. It was a great temptation, and he felt a longing to go.
"Well," he said, finally, "I have not broken any in quite a while, and I believe I'll take a whirl with you to-night."
"All right," nodded Bart. "I'll show you some fellows with sporting blood in their veins."
"But I want you to understand I do not propose to follow it up night after night," Frank hastened to say. "A fellow can't do it and stand the work that's cut out for him here."
"Bother the work!"
"I'll have to work to keep up with the procession. If you can get along without work, you are dead lucky."
"Oh, I'll scrub along some way, don't you worry; and I will come