“But he doesn’t overrate you, my dear fellow,” quickly put in Grant Hardy. “I’ve seen you hold L’Estrange himself at something like even play, and he is a wizard.”
Hodge laughed a bit.
“Why do you laugh?” asked Hardy, with a flash of resentment. “Do you think——”
“I laughed over Mr. Darleton’s modesty,” said Hodge. “It is useless for him to seek to conceal the truth from us in that manner. He is quite the wonder of this club.”
Hardy missed the sarcasm hidden in Bart’s words and his face cleared.
Darleton, however, was not so obtuse, and he surveyed Bart searchingly, a flush creeping into his cheeks.
“I observe that you fence after a fashion, Mr. Hodge,” said Darleton, and the passing breath of insult lay in his manner of saying “after a fashion.”
“Oh, not at all!” protested Hodge; “but I assure you that my friend Merriwell can put up something of an argument at it when he is in his best form.”
“Indeed?” smiled Darleton, lifting his eyebrows. “Then I am led to infer that he is not in his best form just now.”
“What leads you to infer that?”