The fellow who smokes must drink a little, of course. Why not? The crowd he’s drifted into all do it. A little beer, perhaps, to start with. Nasty stuff, but he gulps it down, keeps his face straight, and pretends that he’s happy. The second glass goes down harder than the first. It makes him feel queer. He laughs at silly things, and he smokes one cigarette after another. Oh, say! but this is having a time of it!
When it’s all over he won’t feel so well. It’s likely he’ll swear over and over again never, never to do it again. But a half-consumed package of cigarettes is in his pocket, and when he begins to feel a little better, so that he sits up and takes notice, he finds those cigarettes, and habit puts one into his mouth.
When he realizes at last that he is going the pace, he finds he cannot stop. He says he will smoke no more, but he hangs to the partly used package till he has puffed out the last little white-robed seducer. If he had been strong, if there had been a modicum of his strength remaining, he would have flung them away.
Arnold had begun to smoke at preparatory school. Before that he had taken active part in manly sports of all kinds, and thus he developed those magnificent shoulders and splendid arms. Smoking could ruin his moral sense and stop his advancement, but it could not undo at once all that he had done for himself before he began to smoke.
When he started in to train for the freshman crew at Yale he tried to put cigarettes aside. There was nothing else to be done. He seemed to leave them off completely, but he continued to smoke secretly right along.
Snodgrass had known how to work on Arnold’s weak points. The sophomore was crafty. He did not smoke, and he did not drink anything intoxicating. Snodgrass was looking out for Number One. He knew a man who smoked and drank did not stand as good a chance of making the varsity as one who did neither, and so he did neither. No better man than Arnold at the outset, cigarettes gave Arnold into his power.
“Don’t talk to me about sneaks and spies!” said Merriwell, with unspeakable scorn. “Two greater sneaks than you I have never had the pleasure of seeing!”
“Be careful!” snarled Ben blackly. “I won’t stand for it!”
“You will sit still till I tell you just what I think of you. You are a cur, Snodgrass, and you know it! You, Arnold, are a pitiful traitor, and I’m rather sorry for you; but you have only yourself to blame that you are in this rascal’s power.”
Arnold’s breast began to heave. How could he save himself? Was there a way? Might he not break down now and throw himself on Frank’s sympathy? He thought of that, and straightway set about compelling the tears to come to his eyes. Perhaps the sight of tears would be enough to melt Merriwell.