“Amen!” said the French youth, with almost ludicrous solemnity, and their glasses clinked.
Packard tossed off the liquor without blinking, taking a small swallow of water as a “chaser.” It seemed to make him feel better, for he rubbed his hands together and brightened somewhat.
“Anyhow, you know good stuff, Defarge,” he nodded. “Now I’m ready to hear you unfold your scheme, but I make no promises in advance.”
“You will promise not to say anything about it if you do not go into it with me?”
“Oh, yes, of course. I didn’t mean promises of that sort. I know Merriwell, and I know that it does seem as if Satan himself could not get the best of the fellow. Therefore, I look askance on any scheme to strike him till I am satisfied that it is good. His position is so secure now that there seems little prospect of shaking it in the least. He is king at Yale.”
“But kings have been deposed, you know. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ and so forth. The Easter trip of the nine has covered Merriwell all over with the glory he loves to bask in. The prospects for Yale on the diamond are better this year than ever before. But the nine is made up to a large extent of Merriwell’s friends, and no one can dispute that. Hodge, Browning, Ready, Gamp, Carson, and Carker are all of his flock. Lots of good fellows have been left out in the cold in order to squeeze those chaps in. The ones left out are hollering for Yale and the nine just the same, but, if I know anything of human nature, they are simply hiding their wounds, which rankle all the while.”
“But what has this to do with your scheme?” asked the medical student impatiently. “Those fellows who did not make places on the nine can’t say a word, for Merriwell has made no blunders thus far. You cannot count on a single one of them standing in with you. The only men in Yale to-day who are known to dislike Merriwell belong to Rupert Chickering’s set of asses. They are worse than nothing and nobody. They have won the contempt of everybody outside their own circle.”
“I am not counting on them, or on any man in Yale. But I know a man who can take the starch out of Merriwell.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’ll convince you.”