Paying cabbie without speaking a word, this youth turned and walked into the hotel. As he entered, a colored boy hastened forward and relieved him of his traveling bag. He stepped up to the clerk's desk and said:
"I am Jack Diamond, of Virginia, and I wish to see Mr. Frank Merriwell, who is stopping here."
"Yes, sir," said the clerk, politely. "Mr. Merriwell left orders that you be shown up immediately on your arrival. Twenty-three, show Mr. Diamond to Mr. Merriwell's rooms."
"Right this way, sah," said the colored boy.
Jack followed the uniformed bell boy, who paused at the elevator shaft and pressed a button. In a moment the elevator came gliding noiselessly down, the door slid open, a lady and a gentleman stepped out and Diamond stepped in.
"Third," said the bell boy, and then he turned and disappeared, while the elevator man closed the door and sent the car gliding upward. He stopped at the third floor, and, to Jack's surprise, the bell boy with the grip was there, calmly awaiting his arrival.
Jack followed him to the door of a room at the front of the house. As the boy lifted his hand to knock at the door, there was a burst of laughter within, plainly heard, as the transom was open, and Frank Merriwell's voice cried:
"Hans, if you could tell that story on the stage just as you told it then you would make your fortune."
"Vot vos der madder mit me?" exclaimed the voice of Hans Dunnerwust, Frank's German friend. "Dot nefer vos a funny stories! You don'd seen vot I larft ad! Dot peen a bathetic sdory. I oxbected you vould took mein handkersheft oudt und cried id indo, but you sed roundt
und laugh ad dot bathetic sdory like I vos a lot of monkeys. You don't like dot as vell as I might!"