“Dyke Conrad!” muttered Merry.
“Yes,” said the young man; “but I don’t know you, unless you are—you are—— Why, you are Frank Merriwell!”
“Yes.”
They stood there looking at each other, the youth who had been ruined, and the son of the man who had ruined him.
Dyke had always disliked Merry, and now he grinned.
“Well, I don’t know why you have come here to Bloomfield,” he said. “There’s nothing here for you, and you might just as well stay away. In the future you won’t fly quite so high as you have in the past.”
With a sudden mad impulse, Frank half lifted his clinched fist, but he quickly let it fall by his side, turned out, passed the fellow who had taunted him, and walked on into the darkness.
Self-control had always been a strong feature in Frank’s make-up, and now he needed it more than ever.