“It’th a thame!” declared Lew Veazie, standing before Chickering’s fireplace, his feet as far apart as his short legs would comfortably permit, while he inhaled the smoke of a cigarette with the air of one long accustomed to the things.
“That’s so, chummie,” agreed Ollie Lord, regarding Lew with a look of admiration. “It’s a howling shame!”
“They say his mind is affected,” said Rupert, who had gently seated himself in a position that would bring the least possible strain on the knees of his handsomely creased trousers.
“Oh, no doubt of it!” nodded Julian Ives from the opposite side of the table, pressing a hand against his beautiful bang, as if he feared the air might disturb its symmetry, or it might fall off.
“It must have been an awful disappointment to him,” solemnly croaked Tilton Hull.
“Poor fellow!” sighed Chickering. “The whole college is talking about it. He was a ‘Deke’ man, and yet he failed even to get into Wolf’s Head.”
“It’s perfectly dreadful, fellows!” said Ollie Lord.
“Thimply awful!” said Lew. “And evwybody knowth who ith to blame faw it.”
“That’s so, chummie,” agreed Ollie.
“The man whose word is law at Yale brought it about, of course,” croaked Hull, like a parson droning a sermon with uplifted eyes.
“Let’s not be too harsh on any one,” put in Rupert hastily, with a warning gesture of his hand.
“Oh, come off!” exclaimed Ives. “The man had little feeling for poor Defarge, and, without doubt, it was his influence that kept Defarge down.”
Gene Skelding was sitting square in a chair, his hands clasped, his eyes roving from one speaker to another, a strange, grim expression on his face. Thus far he had taken little part in the conversation, but now he broke in.
“I think Defarge has only himself to blame,” he said.
“What?” exclaimed the others, staring at him in startled surprise.
“Let’s be honest with ourselves for once,” said Gene. “I was the one who found Defarge, hatless, coatless, his shirt torn open at the neck, wandering about in the old cemetery on the evening of tap day. I took him to his room and watched him all night long.”
“And you’ve told us how he raved about Merriwell’s dead eyes,” came hoarsely from Hull.
“The fellow had been drinking dope of some sort,” asserted Gene. “I’ve told you that.”
“Dwiven to dwink by the injuthice he had endured,” put in Lew, with an effort to be dramatic.
“Just so, chummie,” nodded Ollie.
“He had taken to drink, all right, all right,” nodded Gene. “But he acted exactly as if he had been hypnotized by those dead eyes he raved about.”
“What do you suppose made him talk about Merriwell having dead eyes?” asked Chickering.
“I was with him long enough to know that he seemed to see some sort of vision. He talked about a fountain in the blackness of a dark night, and a face down in the fountain—a face that seemed luminous, so he could see it for all of the darkness. It seemed to me that he thought he had drowned Merriwell in that fountain, but he fancied it was far off in Italy, or some foreign country.”
“And all those wild fancies were brought about by his terrible disappointment,” said Julian Ives.
“They were brought about by the stuff he had been drinking,” asserted Skelding. “I took some pains to investigate a little, and I have found that he’s been drinking absinth. That explains it. He’s in a bad way.”
“Driven there by a certain man,” said Chickering solemnly.
“Driven there by his own blank foolishness,” said Gene positively. “No man can be in the condition Defarge was in and drink absinth without quickly paying the penalty.”
“Tempwance lecture by Mithter Thkelding!” cried Veazie, and Ollie snickered.
Gene gave the two little fellows a look that seemed full of positive disgust and contempt, but he held his temper, going on:
“Defarge, like some of the rest of us, has been bucking up against the wrong man, and he did not know enough to throw up the sponge when he was beaten. That is the whole of it in a nutshell.”
“I don’t understand you, Gene,” said Julian Ives, staring at Skelding. “Do you mean that we have bucked against the wrong man when we bucked against Merriwell?”
“That’s what I mean. Doesn’t it look that way? Now, be honest in answering.”
There was consternation in that room at once. Always Skelding had been the fiercest and bitterest against Merriwell.
“Good Lord!” croaked Hull, standing on his tiptoes in order to glare down over his collar at Gene. “What’s this I hear? One of our number talking like a Merriwell saphead? I must be dreaming! I know I am!”
“Oh, Gene is joking!” said Ives.
“Gwathuth! What a queer joke!” murmured Lew.
“I want to tell you fellows what I did with Defarge before I left him the next morning,” said Gene, who had risen to his feet. “All night I listened to his ravings. Now, you all know I’m not squeamish, but I confess that some of the things I heard gave me cold chills. He had some of the most horrible fancies, and through them all he was hunted by Merriwell’s eyes. Those eyes seemed to follow him everywhere. He fought them, he threw the furniture at them, he covered his own eyes to shut out the sight of them, but he could not get away from them.
“I pitied the poor fellow. His face was ghastly and drawn, and great beads of perspiration started out on it at times. His lips would be drawn back from his teeth, and he looked like a grinning death-head. Of course, I knew that the most of the things he raved about were fancies, but with those he mixed lots of facts. I found that more than once he had thought of murdering Merriwell. He had even tried it. Now, I’m no saint, and I have fancied that I could kill Merriwell; but never have I been ready to carry it to that extent when the time came to lift my hand. In listening to the mutterings of Defarge I found that Merriwell had caught and baffled him. Still, for some reason, Merriwell had not crushed him. He had seen atlast that he must make his peace with Merriwell if he was to get into ‘Bones,’ and so he went and played a part.
“He tried to fool Merriwell into thinking him repentant, and he thought he had succeeded; but I do not think it so easy to fool that man, even though he may let one fancy he is being fooled. Merriwell saw through Defarge all the time. In fact, I think Merriwell must have hypnotic power over Defarge, and so he could read Bertrand’s secret. That is why those eyes seemed to hunt Defarge so. The eyes were before his fancy, just as he had seen them boring into his soul more than once. Now, it’s likely that somehow there was an understanding that Defarge was to go to ‘Bones.’ Whether Merriwell found a way to stop him or not I cannot say, but it was just punishment for the injuries Defarge has tried to do Merriwell, and so I told the fellow before I left him that morning.
“He was pretty sober when I talked to him, and I told him we were both thundering scoundrels and pitiful fools. Had we been decent fellows we might have belonged to Merriwell’s crowd, and that would have helped carry us anywhere. But our greed and our hatred had made us outcasts. We were getting our dues. He had to listen to me, for I held him while I talked. That night with him was just what I needed to open my eyes at last, and now I’m aware that I have made a howling idiot of myself.”
They stared at him in wonder. Was this Skelding? He had been the worst of the lot.
“I believe staying with Defarge that night affected his head some, fellows,” whispered Chickering.
Gene gave Rupert a look of contempt.
“It did affect my head,” he acknowledged. “It gave me, I believe, a little more sense than I have had for a long, long time. I came to see myself and a few of my particular friends, as well as the men I have reckoned as my enemies, in the true light. Chickering, I’ve never held you in much respect, for you are a hypocrite, and I have known it right along.”
“Would you insult your friend in his own rooms?” cried Ives, also starting up.
“Hush!” said Rupert, with a gentle gesture of restraint and sorrow. “Do not revile him, Julian. Even though he may unjustly turn upon me, I have no revengeful feeling in my heart, and I cannot forget that he has often taken tea from my hand.”
“Go on!” exclaimed Gene. “I’ve borrowed money of you, too. I know it. If it hadn’t been for that I’d not be here now. You knew how to make me one of your set. You lent me money, but I’ve paid it back, every dirty cent! Haven’t I? Answer me! Haven’t I?”
Rupert shuddered a little at this fierceness.
“I—I believe you have,” he said.
“You believe! You know! Say you know it!”
“Oh, very well; I know it,” agreed the alarmed fellow.
“That has been one of your holds on all your friends. Your friends! Well, here they are! Look at them! Compare them with Frank Merriwell’s friends! Ha, ha, ha! That night I spent with Defarge I came to look the whole matter over, and I saw just how it was that I belonged to our gang. Do you know what we are? Well, we’re outcasts, every one of us. We are compelled to flock by ourselves for company, as other men want nothing to do with us. Merriwell to-day, the man we hate with all our hearts, is better known and more popular than any other man who ever entered Yale. He is the idol of the youth of our country. They regard him as the typical young American. But what are we? We are looked on as snobs, and cads, and sappies. It’s just what is coming to us, and we can’t kick!”
“He must have turned crazy with Defarge!” exclaimed Ives.
“He must!” croaked Hull.
“I turned crazy enough to get some sense into my head. It’s too late for me to ever make anything of myself here in college, but I have resolved to turn over a new leaf, just the same. Even Defarge was given a show on the eleven last fall. Though he had been Merriwell’s open foe, Merriwell did not keep him off the eleven. That man is square as a brick, andthat’s the way he gets his friends and holds them. He does hold them, too. You know it, every one of you. Did you ever know one of his friends to go back on him? Never. It’s a wonder how he grapples them to him with hooks of steel.”
“The trouble with him,” said Ives, in an aside to Chickering, “is that he found more than he could handle in Hodge that night. You know when I mean.”
Rupert nodded. Skelding flushed.
“I fought Hodge squarely,” he said, “and he whipped me, just as he can any man here—or any two of you!”
“He’s done for!” said Chickering, with a gesture of sorrowful regret. “He’ll be bowing down and licking the dust off Merriwell’s feet now.”
“That’s a lie!” said Gene. “Merriwell won’t have me, even if I want to. But I am done with this crowd.”
“You won’t have many friends,” croaked Hull, with an expression of satisfaction.
“That’s tho!” cried Veazie.
“Just so, chummie!” agreed Lord.
“I know you are right about that. I’ll have to go it alone, unless I can convert Defarge, and I’m afraid he’s too far gone, poor devil! I think his selfishness and his hatred for Merriwell have brought about his ruin.”
“Merriwell has ruined him!” cried Ives savagely.“You would have said so a week ago! I don’t know what you’re going to try to do, but I don’t believe you’ll get taken into Merriwell’s flock.”
“I don’t expect to be; but I’ll take myself out of this flock, and that will give me a chance to regard myself as something more of a man. What are you, one and all? Chickering is a pitiful creature, with just enough brains to be a hypocrite. Hull never had a real thought in his wooden head in all his life. You, Ives, are a poor imitation of a real man, and, though you sometimes bluster and brag, you are always the first to dodge behind shelter when there is danger. Veazie is a poor, simple little thing, who never can become a man, and Lord is his counterpart.”
“Be careful, thir!” screamed Veazie, shaking his fist at Gene. “I won’t thand it, thir!”
“Poor Gene!” said Rupert, with increasing sadness. “After all I have done for him!”
“He’s an insulting scamp!” croaked Huff, his face very red.
“He’s a——” began Ives, but Skelding cut him short, advising:
“Don’t you say much, unless you want to fight. I’d be ashamed to put my hands on any of the others, but I may be tempted to thrash you before leaving, so you’d better keep your mouth closed.”
Ives gasped and gurgled, but Skelding really seemed to find it difficult to keep off, so Julian closed up.
Skelding took up his hat and light overcoat, tossing the latter over his arm.
“I’m going,” he said, “and I’ll never come back to this place any more, I’m happy to say. I feel as if there may be a chance for me to become a man. And I want to warn you to let Defarge alone. He’s pretty low now, and you’ll only send him lower.”
Skelding walked to the door, where he paused, turned, and surveyed them all with a look of contempt.
“When you meet me hereafter,” he said, “kindly refrain from speaking to me. It will be best for you to do so, for I promise you that I shall take it as a deadly insult if you speak. I may not be able to whip Bart Hodge, but I’ll bet my shirt that I can whip any one of you, or the whole bunch together. Good night.”
Then he went out.
“Go to the devil!” hissed Julian Ives.
“Poor, misguided fellow!” sighed Chickering. “I must have some tea to steady my nerves.”