“I don’t know, Parker,” said Merriwell, laughing. “That depends on you, you know. I didn’t start the trouble between us, and I’m sorry that there had to be any. It was you who tried to spoil Jim Phillips’ record and cause Yale to enter the series with Harvard in a crippled condition. I’ll let you alone as long as you give me no cause to interfere with you. But if you make a move that seems to be unfair or is intended to hurt any of my friends, I will use the confession you signed. That is still in my possession, you know, and it will be enough to cause your expulsion from Yale if I give the word.”
“You forced it out of me,” said Parker. “I don’t think that a confession extracted in that way is any good.”
“Possibly not, if there’s no other evidence,” said Dick cheerfully. “And there’s plenty in this case, you see. Carpenter confessed his part, and Shesgren, as you know, refused to be your tool as soon as he found out what you were doing. Now, there’s another matter. You know something of what happened to Phillips in Boston. Just how much you do know I don’t pretend to say, and I’m not going to ask you, either. But I’m going to warn you to be careful. We are on the lookout; and if you are concerned in anything more of this sort, the evidence of your first plot will go to the dean at once. You know what would happen after that.”
“I’m not admitting anything to you,” said Parker, as insultingly as he could. “But I’m not afraid of you. I’m going to keep my hands out of your affairs altogether. And if you don’t want me to report for football practice in September, all you’ve got to do is to say so.”
“I do want you to play football, of course,” said Dick, “provided that you are willing to behave yourself. I don’t know much about you, Parker, except for the episode of the registered letter. Put yourself in my place. If that was all you knew about another man, you would be likely to distrust him, wouldn’t you, and would want to feel sure that he was powerless to injure you? That’s my only feeling. I don’t bear any ill will. I’m perfectly willing to let the past go, and to consider only the present and the future.
“You’re a man who can do a whole lot for Yale if you will sink your personal ambitions and make up your mind to work for the old college. I would rather have you with me than against me. Why don’t you cut loose from the old ways and try a new deal?”
Parker was surprised at the apparent willingness of Dick Merriwell—whom he regarded as his personal enemy—to be friendly. But he was self-willed and obstinate, and it was very hard for him to get rid of a prejudice once formed in his mind.
“That sounds very fine,” he said, sneering. “But I might as well tell you that I don’t take much stock in it. I’ll look out for myself. If you don’t like the way I do things, you can do the other thing. And if the football team can get along without me, I can certainly get along without the football team.”
He got up abruptly, and took himself off. But he was thinking hard as he went.
“Curse him!” he said, to himself, scowling. “I’ll never be safe as long as he has that confession of mine. I’ll have to tell Foote about that, so that he can work out some scheme for getting it away from him—the sneak! He’d use that now, and ruin me, if anything happened, whether he could prove that I was mixed up in it or not.”