“Anybody else present?”
“No.”
“I must see Noon.”
Merriwell was aroused, for he realized that Bart Hodge was in danger. Were Hodge arrested for injuring the policeman, and should the charge be proved against him, his college career might come to a sudden termination.
Frank had pulled his friend out of more than one bad hole, and he believed he understood Bart’s nature pretty well. Hodge was again on the high road to an honorable career, guided by Merriwell’s hand, but to thwart him at the very outset of his college life would mean almost certain ruin.
Merry’s teeth came together with a click when he realized the danger that menaced Bart.
“I’m afraid you made a mistake in introducing that freshman to our gang,” complained Griswold. “None of the fellows cared to know him, but they accepted him simply because of your friendship toward him. This is the result.”
Frank was not pleased by Danny’s words. They did not sound as if they came from the little fellow’s mouth.
“None of my friends were forced to meet Bart Hodge,” he said, quietly. “Hodge and I were schoolmates together, and, when he came to Yale, I was not going to be cad enough to cut him because he is in a lower class than myself. I am not built that way.”
“Oh, you might have treated him decent, without having him in your room so much.”