“Then the bargain is made. Let’s shake hands on it.”
Snodgrass rose and offered his hand, which the big thug accepted, and gave a grip to seal the dastardly compact.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BUSTER BILL SURPRISED.
Frank was methodical in everything he did, and that was how he accomplished so much without being swamped. He gave just so much time to everything. When the work of the day was all done, he ventured to spend a little time in idleness, but not till then.
No man ever accomplishes great things and performs great labors unless he is methodical. The person who goes at any task by fits and starts does not make rapid progress. It is persistent hammering away at anything that counts in the end. In the fable the tortoise beat the hare; so the slow, plodding, determined man often beats the brilliant, flighty, erratic man of genius in the race of life.
Steady hammering at one kind of work becomes monotonous after a time, it is true, and a man may wear himself out before his time in such a manner. But give him variety, let him change at certain hours of the day from one thing to another, and the amount he can accomplish will amaze those who look on and never put their powers to the full test.
Frank Merriwell’s life was one of constant change and variety. The classroom, the gymnasium, the ball-field, the rowing-tank, or the shell led him from one thing to another at certain hours, and so he performed an amount of labor that astounded lazy students.
Each afternoon he reached the field at a certain hour. He entered into the work there with vim and vigor. When it was over, he had a way of starting off by himself to walk back to Vanderbilt. He preferred to make this little walk quite alone. His friends had found this out, and they permitted him to do so.
There may have been a secret reason why Frank chose to walk back unaccompanied from the field. Perhaps it would seem impolite to pry into some of his secrets. All day long he was thinking of studies, lectures, gymnastics, baseball, and rowing—all day except during this walk by himself in the dusk of early evening.
Of what was he thinking then? Why was it that he often smiled fondly to himself, as if looking into the face of some one very dear? Why was it that he seemed utterly oblivious to his surroundings as he swung along with that beautiful, easy stride? Why was it that sometimes his lips moved, and—listen! did he murmur a name? Was it—Inza?