“I don’t see haow yeou brought yerself to it.”

Frank looked grave and not exactly pleased.

“I have always expected to work when the time came,” he asserted. “I hope you didn’t suppose for a moment that I was going to spend my life in idleness?”

“Oh, no, no!” the Vermonter hastily cried; “but yeou wan’t reddy. Yeou was in college an’ havin’ a slappin’ good time. It was mighty rough to have ter break right off from that all to once an’ git out an’ dig fer a livin’.”

“Well,” said Merry, slowly, “I will admit that it was not pleasant at first; but I made up my mind that it was to be done, and I went at it heartily. After a time, I came to enjoy it as I never enjoyed anything before.”

“Whut! Yeou don’t mean to say yeou liked it better than playin’ baseball?”

“Yes!”

“Jee-roo-sa-lum!”

“Better than anything. Work is the greatest sport in the world, for it is a game at which one plays to win the prize of his life. The winning of all other games are tame in comparison with this. It draws out the best qualities in a man, it tests him as nothing else can. Oh, yes, work is the champion sport, and success is the prize for which all earnest workers strive. The man who shirks and fears honest work can never succeed in the world. Determined men will push him aside, and he will be with the losers at the end of the great game.”

Ephraim Gallup clapped Frank on the shoulder familiarly.

“Yeou are yerself, b’gosh!” he cried. “I kin see that yeou are soberer an’ stiddyer, but yeou are Frank Merriwell jest the same. Yeou was alwus sayin’ things like that that no other feller ever thought to say. There ain’t no danger but yeou’ll be with the winner in this game yeou’re talkin’ abaout.”

“Uf der vinners don’d peen mit him they vill peen der wrong side on,” asserted Hans.

“Come in here,” he said, “and I will introduce you to a particular friend.”

He led them into the small fruit and cigar store in front of which he had been standing when the donkey ran away from Hans.

CHAPTER III. LUCKY LITTLE NELL.

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