"He's a bad man—a blamed bad man!" fluttered Danny Griswold.
"That's right," nodded Lewis Little. "He really wants to fight with swords, I believe."
"Of course, he does," nodded Andy Emery, who had not said a word during all the talk between Merriwell and Marline. "Jack Diamond was another fellow just like him when he first came to Yale."
"So he was," said Putnam. "And it seems to me I have heard that Merriwell met him."
Frank smiled a bit.
"We had a little go," he said. "He put up a fierce fight, too, for a fellow that knew nothing about the science."
"Oh, everybody knows about that!" said Put. "It was the other affair I was speaking of. Didn't he force you into a duel with swords?"
"That affair was not very serious," said Frank, evasively.
"But I know it took place. He was a fire eater, and he had just such ideas of honor as Marline holds. Thought it a disgrace to fight with fists, and all that. You couldn't get out of meeting him in a regular duel, and you did so. I've heard the fellows talking it over. Let's see, who got the best of it?"
"It was interrupted before the end," said Frank. "The sophs came down on us, and we thought them the faculty. Everybody took to his heels."