Frank was not in the habit of taking the lie from anybody, but now, seeing Packard’s arm in a sling, he did not heed the fellow’s insult.
“Your friends think you’re a great gun,” Roland went on; “but you really are mighty small potatoes. Won the DeForest prize, did you? Well, you may have to pawn it soon to get bread to keep you from starving!”
This did not have the effect Roland had fancied it might, which angered him to a still further expression of rage.
“Oh, you’re mighty cool; but you won’t be so cool when you find you’re a beggar! And you are! I know what I’m talking about. You will find it out in time, and I want to tell you now that it is I—I, Roland Packard, whom you despise, who has made you a beggar! Don’t forget it!”
He wheeled and walked swiftly away.
Frank stood still and looked after the fellow.
“I wonder what he meant,” Merry muttered, a feeling of uneasiness in his breast. “Is he plumb daffy? I know he’s pretty drunk, but still it seems that he must have some reason left.”
Frank was troubled despite himself, and he hurried to his room, where he made sure the oilskin envelope was still safe in his possession.
Packard had hurried away to drink still more. Already he was half-crazed by liquor, but he felt consumed by a burning fire that called for more, more, more.
The afternoon of graduation-day came and saw all graduating students in caps and gowns, headed by the faculty, likewise garbed, march to the music of a band out of the campus and down Elm Street to the green, which they crossed, turning up Chapel Street to Vanderbilt. The gates of Vanderbilt are opened but once a year, always on this occasion, and through the gates they marched, under the arch and across the campus. The chapel was entered, and then came the last solemn ceremony of conferring the degrees.