"Well, I want to see Inza, and have a talk with her, about the New London races. So I think I will take a car for Mrs. Moran's."
Winnie had informed him that both Inza and Elsie had gone on an errand of mercy to the home of the grandmother of Barney Lynn.
"And you won't come in, even a little while? You prefer their society to mine, I see! I am ashamed of you, Frank Merriwell! You are not as gallant as you used to be."
Her voice was merry and her heart light.
"Some other afternoon or evening I shall be glad to come in and talk you to death. Just now I am pressed for time."
"I ought to have gone down there with them," she confessed. "But it seemed that I couldn't get away. Frank, you don't know what angels of mercy those girls have been! Elsie found out that Mrs. Moran was starving and dying by inches for lack of proper food and medicines, and since then she and Inza have been down there every day, and often two or three times a day."
"I trust they don't venture after nightfall!"
Frank was thinking of a fight Jack Ready had while rescuing Elsie from the drunken ruffian, Jim Haskins.
Then he thanked Winnie for her invitation, said good-by, and hurried away to catch the first car going in the direction which he wished to take.
"I hope Badger is entirely worthy of her," he thought, his mind on Winnie Lee. "She is a fine girl, and if he gets her he will get a prize. Now, if they don't pass me, coming back in another car! Winnie hasn't the least idea that Buck was intoxicated when he went aboard the Crested Foam, and she shall never know it from me!"