He began to feel that Morgan would accept and act upon the suggestion. Dade came back and sat down.

“I ought to thank you for that, Pike,” he said in a low tone. “I’m no better than I ought to be, and I presume that if you had come to me yesterday, I should have thanked you for this. But I don’t think I’ll try to do what you say.”

Donald Pike stared.

“Getting goody-goody?”

“No, it’s not that!”

“Just the same with all of them!” Pike snarled, under his breath.

“I don’t think I understand you if you meant that for me.”

“Well, you are just like all the others!” Pike asserted almost fiercely. “I don’t know why it is, for it hasn’t worked on me that way, but nearly every fellow who has started in here at Yale to down Merriwell has done one of two things: He has either become afraid of Merriwell and practically dropped out of the fight, or he has gone over to Merriwell.”

Dade’s face was again flushing.

“There was Buck Badger! I’ve told you of him before. He was the bitterest enemy Frank Merriwell had for a while, and he ended by becoming a Merriwell maniac. He thinks now that there never was another such man on earth. Why, I’ve been told that even Browning and Hodge, two fellows who can’t think unless Merriwell first gives them license, were once his enemies! You’re traveling the same road. I was Badger’s chum and saw how he went over to Frank Merriwell, and you’re struck with the same symptoms. What in thunder is the matter with all you fellows, anyway?”

“It was Starbright you wanted me to strike with a rock, I believe?” said Morgan, not pleased with this lecture.

“Yes.”

“Starbright isn’t Merriwell.”

“But he’s Merriwell’s protégé, and when you can’t strike Merriwell himself, the best way to get at him is to strike Starbright, or some other of his friends. But you needn’t do it if you don’t care to. It was merely a suggestion.”

“I’m still against Merriwell. Don’t let yourself forget that, Pike!”

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