“Oh, yes!” laughed Frank, honestly. “I have made lots of mistakes.”
“How?”
“By trusting men who were rascals. By giving them too much chance at me.”
“It’s alwus in that way that he makes mistakes, by thutter!” put in Gallup. “He never makes um any other way, an’ I guess by jee! that sometimes when he does trust a feller, he knows the chap’s crooked, but kainder hopes he won’t prove that way.”
“Yes,” smiled Merry, “I have trusted many chaps, while I felt in my heart that they were crooked, but I hoped I might be mistaken. I do not like to condemn a man before he has been given a show to display what there is in him.”
Dunton had been walking along in silence after his first remark. Now he observed:
“I rather believe that sometimes, by trusting such fellows, you put them on their honor so that they are ashamed to do you a dirty turn.”
“That is my object—it is my hope,” said Merry. “The moment a man knows he is mistrusted, if his character is weak, he begins to mistrust himself. Let him feel that others have confidence in him, and his conscience in many cases makes him ashamed of being crooked.”
“I don’t suppose I’m any too good,” admitted Dunton. “In fact, I realize I’m not. It was not so long ago that I tried to do you a bad turn, Merriwell. That was when you first joined the company to which I belonged. I was no match for you. You did me up, but then, instead of exposing me and causing my release in disgrace from the company, you kept still and gave me a show. When I understood the full extent of your generosity, I began to compare myself with you, and the comparison was odious. I was disgusted with myself. I said, ‘Frank Merriwell is square, white and generous. What are you?’ Then I came to you, Merriwell, and owned up.”
“That’s right,” nodded Frank. “And I do not believe to this day Havener knows anything about it, although he was witness of the whole affair as it originally happened.”