"Well?" sneered the big yearling.
"I want to say that I think Davis perfectly right in refusing to fight you. You are larger and older than he is, you have nearly, if not quite, twice as much strength as he has, and your reputation is that of a slugger. He would not stand a show with you, and you know it, for which reason you have seemed to select him as an object of your bullying attentions."
Frank looked Bascomb straight in the eye, and the big fellow's face grew black with anger.
"What do you want?" he muttered.
"I want to tell you what I think of you, and I am going to do so. Davis has been reared like a gentleman, and it is but natural that he should recoil from contact with such as you."
"Do you mean to say I am no gentleman?"
"That is exactly what I mean to say, sir. No gentleman ever plays the bully, as you have done."
Bascomb made a move, as if he would do something desperate, and, on the instant, two of his particular friends caught hold of him, saying hastily:
"Not now, old man—not here! It would spoil everything."
Now Bascomb was not longing for a fight with Merriwell, and he would gladly have done something to cause the officers to interfere; but, to his regret, he saw that he had been too slow about it. So he sullenly muttered: