“She did,” nodded Merry, smiling. “She decided not to kill me. She resolved to save me, even though I had been condemned to die by the bomb-throwers, who were convinced that I was dangerous for them. Then, when the real executioner came into the cellar to do the job, she struck him senseless with a stone, and set me free.”
Bruce Browning sat up, and stared at Frank.
“I’ll admit that you are the queerest chap alive!” he growled. “You had such an adventure here in Paris, and yet you never told any of us a word about it! Merriwell, I don’t understand you, and I thought I knew you pretty well.”
Now Frank laughed outright.
“I had no occasion to say anything about it, you know.”
“Most fellows would have made an occasion. Supposing the story of that adventure had been known at college. You’d been a king-pin from the very first.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You know, a fellow’s record before he enters Yale doesn’t cut much ice there. It’s the record he makes afterward that counts. In almost any other college it is different. A man’s standing amounts to a great deal elsewhere. At Yale, he makes a standing for himself. If he attempts to bolster himself up by tales of what he has done, he is regarded with suspicion and contempt. You know this is true. It is to his direct disadvantage to boast.”
“But it was not necessary for you to boast. You might have told your friends. You never told any of us.”
“Never!” exclaimed Diamond.
“Not a word!” came reproachfully from Rattleton.