“I am done with the stuff for between-the-acts bracers,” he said. “Those who want it may take it. Merriwell doesn’t drink a drop, and he’ll have us all in the shade before the season is over.”
“Are you going to take him for a model?”
“I may. It wouldn’t hurt either of us to pattern after such a model.”
Dunton managed to get through the final act of the play. Appearances indicated that Frank had not betrayed him up to the end of the play, but he felt sure Merry would do so immediately after all was over.
As soon as possible, he wiped off his make-up, got into his street clothes, and left the theater. He went straight to the hotel, and proceeded to get as full of whisky as he could hold.
“I’ll be good and drunk when they jump on me,” he thought.
How he got to bed or when he went he never knew, but he awoke the following morning with a splitting headache, and he was forced to start the day with two stiff drinks. Those seemed to brace him up, and, dressing, he went down to see what was being said about him.
He met some of the members of the company, and they congratulated him on the duel scene. At first he fancied they might be trying to draw him out, but he soon decided they were in earnest. That made it evident that they knew nothing of the facts. But Havener must know.
He met Havener, and two minutes’ conversation with the stage-manager convinced him that Havener did not know.
Then it began to dawn upon him that it was possible Merriwell had not yet denounced him. Before long he was convinced that this was true.