CHAPTER XVIII.CAUGHT IN THE TRAP.

The messenger-boy was found and instructed. He set off to find Boltwood, accompanied and directed by Carker. Within the closed hack, behind the drawn curtains, Ready and Bingham waited.

“Oh, luddy me!” chuckled Jack. “How surprised our poetical friend will be!”

“What if he does not take the bait?” muttered Bingham.

“He will, my gentle fairy, he will.”

“Why are you so confident?”

“He is a writer of alleged poetry, and so he’s an easy mark. See if I’m not right. And he thinks all the girls are liable to lose their senses over him. This, however, my sylphlike friend, is going to seem a great conquest to him. He will rush to the arms of Lotta. Oh, yum, yum!”

“If Carker does his part——”

“Cark will find a way, Bing, old baby. He’ll be ready to give Boltwood a gentle push at the right moment, mark my word. Cark is an odd fish, but he’s great at carrying out instructions. Get him to going, and nothing but the Grim Reaper can stop him.”

“Queer you should take up with such a fellow, Ready.”

“Is it? I dunno. Contrast, you know. My dazzling wit has the greater glitter in contrast to his prosaic and peachy ways. I am a good thing, Bing, and I like to set myself off as well as possible. He’s an excellent foil, you know.”

“You’re a conceited ass!”

“Thanks, awfully, Bing, old boy. You have a dainty and delicate way of expressing yourself that I much admire—I don’t think!”

“Oh, well, you’re always shooting off your chin at other people, and it does you good to tell you the sober truth once in a while. You are an ass, Ready, and everybody knows it; and you have got a larger stock of conceit than any other man living.”

“Perchance if you continue this style of comment, I may become angry in time.”

“That’s all right. Get mad if you want to. What’ll you do?”

“I may give you an awfully cutting look.”

“That would be a terrible thing!”

“Hush!” warned Ready, applying his eye to a tiny hole in the curtain. “Methinks it is about time for Boltwood to be rushing to the arms of his Tottie.”

“See anything of him?” asked Bingham.

“Not a thing.”

“He may not come.”

“I think he will.”

“But I believe Merriwell was up to something.”

“He’s a dandy!” commented Jack; “but I caught him once when he was not up to snuff.”

“He may have planned to get even with you.”

“How?”

“Perhaps he has warned Boltwood.”

“Why should he do that?”

“Well, we’ll have the messenger to pay and the cabman, besides sitting cooped up here like a couple of chumps. To-night the whole college may be ready to give us the ha-ha.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

“The game is too simple for Merriwell to play,” he declared.

“Why too simple?”

“He would not go into anything of the sort. If he were trying to even up the old score, he’d be at something on a scale that would make it more even. You have not hit it, Bingham. Besides, I think Merry is willing to let the past remain buried. I confess that he has had fun with me more than once, but I settled his case the night he joined the gang that was hazing me.”

“That’s where your conceit comes in,” said Bingham. “You have an idea that you’re as clever as Frank Merriwell. That’s enough to make anybodysick! Why, he can tell you the trick he’s going to work, and then fool you.”

“Then, indeed, I must be a chump in your eyes!” sighed Ready. “Bing, you are knocking at me because of what I said about that old gal you had out to sup last night. All right! I’ll pay you back; see if I don’t!”

“If you continue to be too fresh, I may take a notion to thump you a little.”

“If you do, old guy, I shall feel it my duty to give you the finest thrashing you ever had, even though you weigh a pound and a quarter more than I do. I shall——’Sh! I see something!”

Jack was peering through the tiny hole in the curtain.

“What?” asked Bingham.

“He comes!” palpitated Ready.

“Boltwood?”

“Sure thing!”

“No mistake?”

“Nary! Get ready to grab, Bing, you darling old knocker! We’ll be having a lively time with him in a minute. The messenger is pointing out the cab. Ha! Boltwood gives the boy a quarter! Well, that youngster has made a good thing out of the job. He approaches! He has thrust out his chest, and is walking hastily in this direction. Here is where we get into gear and have fun with the gentle poet!”

It was true that Rolf Boltwood was approaching the cab. He was a rather good-looking fellow, although he had a peculiar, melancholy cast of countenance and long hair that flowed upon the collar of his coat. Although not an athlete, hehad a very attractivefigure, and it was possible he could have been athletic had he tried.

In the freshman class Boltwood had attracted very little attention until he wrote a parody on something or other, in which he satirized with considerable ability a number of the prominent sophomores, including, of course, Ready and Carker. This had brought him into notice, but it had made any amount of enemies for him among the sophomores. He was, indeed, a callow youth, who regarded himself as a genuine “lady-killer,” and it had not been difficult, for that reason, to lure him into a trap of this sort.

Straight up to the cab Boltwood rushed, flinging open the door and lifting his hat at the same time.

Two hands came out and clutched him by the collar before he could start back in astonishment. Behind him Greg Carker bobbed up from somewhere and gave him a boosting push. The two hands in his collar gave a surge at the same time, and into the cab went Boltwood with a rush.

Slam! went the door, and up to the seat beside the driver vaulted Carker, saying:

“Let ’er go! We’re off!”

Strange sounds came from within the cab.

“Don’t mind any slight agitation,” said Carker to the driver. “If it happens that any damage is done, I’ll guarantee that we’ll pay double what repairs will cost.”

“All right, sir. Which way, sir?”

“Straight over the Barnesville Bridge.”

Away went the cab with a rattle, a rush, and cracking of the whip.

Boltwood had been flung fairly across the knees of Jack Ready, who cheerily cried:

“Come to the arms of your own Tottie Coughdrop, you dear, sweet thing!”

Then the door slammed.

“What the——” gasped the freshman.

“Tush, tush!” said Jack. “Why, how dare you, sir! Such unbecoming language in the presence of your own Tottie!”

Boltwood began to kick.

“Leggo!” he yelled. “What kind of a job is this?”

“Gently, gently!” warned Ready. “You may smash the window, and, perchance, it will cost you a doubloon, whatever that is.”

“Leggo!” yelled Boltwood again, still kicking.

“Bing,” said Jack, “if he continues to slosh round like this, you’ll have to spank him soundly.”

“I’ll enjoy doing so,” assured Bingham.

Then he gave the freshman a crack with his openhand that brought a yell of pain from the surprised fellow.

“Now will you be good?” asked Jack kindly.

Boltwood stopped kicking.

“Are you crazy?” he asked. “What are you trying to do, anyhow?”

“Is it thus that you speak of your own dear Lotta?” sighed Jack.

“Lotta be hanged!” snarled the disgusted chap.

“Oh, goodness sakes!” gasped Ready. “How pained she is to hear you say that! Does oo ’ike oor ’Otta, pitty boy? Ain’t oo dlad oo tum to see oor dirl, pessus pet?”

“Shut up!” howled Boltwood. “Let me sit up like a man.”

“Can you do it? It’s wonderful what some animals can learn by example.”

Boltwood kicked again.

“Bing, apply the palm-oil,” directed Jack, and the big sophomore again spanked the floundering freshman.

“Ow!” whooped the victim. “Hit me with a ham, but don’t hit me with that thing, please!”

“This is simply the tootsie-wootsie of my friend,” said Jack. “He is caressing you, my pretty boy.”

“I don’t fancy that kind of a caress!” growled Boltwood.

“But you must enjoy resting in the arms of yourown Lotta,” urged Jack. “I shall be mortally offended if you say you do not think it just perfectly heavenly.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?” snapped the captive.

“Well,” said Ready, “you write poetry, and we have to judge a man by his conduct.”

“Then I’d take you for a monkey!” flung back Boltwood.

“Bing,” said Jack, “give him another application of palm-oil.”

Bingham faithfully followed instructions. The freshman tried to kick out the door.

“My, my!” said Ready, holding onto him with some difficulty. “What a naughty little boy he is!”

“If I keep this up, I’ll have blisters on my hand,” said Bingham.

“He is resting easier now,” said Jack. “I fancy your application has done him good, Doctor Bing.”

“Oh, I’ll get even with you fellows!” vowed the freshman. “See if I don’t!”

“That’s all right,” growled the big sophomore. “Your word will be no good against ours, and we do not remember having seen you this day.”

“What are you going to do with me?” asked the freshman, with greater meekness.

“Why, you are enjoying a date with your own Lotta, who has fallen into lots of mazuma through the death of her Aunt Kit,” said Ready. “How gladly you rushed with fluttering heart to meet her! Yourpoetic soul swelled with rapture, didn’t it, Rolfie? But you jumped into this cab in such a rude, rude manner! It was perfectly shocking. I don’t think you are a real gent. You should have stood outside, and smiled sweetly on your Lotta, instead of diving headlong at her, and trying to butt her in the solar-plexus with your woodencaput. In the high society where she was a gay butterfly before seeking a career on the stoige, the young gents did not behave thusly. Oh, nit, nit! They were perfect gents—they were!”

“You make me sick!” gurgled Boltwood.

“How rude!” sobbed Jack. “Bing, do you fancy another application of the palm will teach him better manners?”

“Perhaps,” grunted Bingham, who was ready enough to make the application.

“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried Boltwood, almost in tears. “I’ll never get over this!”

Truly it was humiliating for him, a poet, to be treated in such a rude and unfeeling manner.

“Then you are ready to take back what you just said?”

“Yes, yes!”

“And you really do love your Lotta?”

“Oh, Lord!” sobbed Boltwood.

“But you really do?” insisted Jack.

“What business is that to——”

“Bing, apply the palm!”

“Oh, no, no!” screamed Boltwood. “What do you want me to say?”

“Do you really love your Lotta?”

“I adore her!”

“How nice! Will you be a good boy if you are permitted to sit up like a man?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t kick and make a muss?”

“Well, I——”

“Bing, perhaps another application——”

“Oh, I won’t kick!” gasped the freshman, in a hurry.

“You will go along with us quietly?”

“I suppose so.”

“Promise.”

“Yes.”

“That is very good. Do you love your Lotta?”

“Yes.”

“With all your heart?”

“Yes.”

“How nice! Of course, you won’t ever tell a soul about this ride with her, will you, precious boy?”

“Oh, I ain’t likely to!”

“But you must promise, precious one.”

“What the dickens do you take me for?”

“Bing, I fear you will be forced to——”

“Oh, Lord! I’ll promise that!”

“You will never tell a soul about it?”

“No.”

“Not even the faculty?”

“No.”

“That’s lovely of you. And do you love your Lotta?”

“Oh, yes—I love her!”

“Away down to the bottom of your throbbing heart?”

“Yes.”

“How nice! And you’ll never make any fuss about it if she keeps you out real late this evening?”

“Oh, come, now——”

“Promise.”

“If I must——”

“You must.”

“All right. I promise.”

“That’s real sweet of you. Now you may sit up like a man.”

Then Boltwood, glaring and enraged, was permitted to sit on the seat opposite Jack, who smiled on him sweetly.

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