“But what?”
“It is so remarkable. Why, you came to Yale in the quietest way possible. Any one might have taken you for a country lad just getting out into the world, for all of anything you had to tell of yourself.”
“What if I had told the story I’ve just related to you? What if I had related a number of yarns about my adventures in various parts of the world? What if I had begun at college by prating of the things I had done?”
“You’d been set down as a howling liar!” exploded Rattleton.
“Exactly,” nodded Merry. “If I had an inclination to speak of such things, I put it aside, and kept corked up. You need not set it down as modesty, unless you like; you may call it horse-sense.”
They talked over Frank’s adventure, just related, for some time, asking him many questions about it, for it was a most fascinating story.
“Those must have been tot old himes—I mean hot old times,” said Rattleton.
“I should say so!” agreed Diamond. “You struck a circus in Paris, and that’s straight! I hardly think anything like that will happen while you are here this time.”
“Not likely,” admitted Merry. “I don’t believe I care about having anything like that happen again. It’s well enough to talk about, but I was rather too near being snuffed out to enjoy it at the time.”
There came a timid knock on the door.