Frank Merriwell's Strong Arm; Or, Saving an Enemy

by Burt L. Standish

Gene descended the stairs, stepped on the steps, and drew several deep breaths, as if he would clear his lungs of the atmosphere that had defiled them while he was in that room. He was satisfied with himself and what he had done.

For some time he had been growing more and more disgusted with the Chickering crowd. Of late he had appeared in public with them as seldom as possible. Skelding was not a fool, and he saw at last that his folly in taking up with such fellows had given him his standing at Yale, and that standing was not pleasant to contemplate.

At last he had been taught the old, old lesson that a man is judged by the company he keeps. Most boys are told this early in life, but somehow it seems to have little impression on them until their eyes are opened by experience. Shun bad company; better have no friends than to be friendly with the wrong sort of fellows.

Skelding had never smoked cigarettes until he fell in with the Chickering crowd. Then it was nothing more than natural that he should take to them, for they were forever near him, being smoked by his companions and offered to him.

He had not found them agreeable at first, but surely he, big and strong, could endure as much as that little whipper-snapper Veazie, and so he had persisted in using them until the habit was set upon him.

A dozen times he had vowed that he would smoke no more, but always he had found the things at hand in Chickering’s room, and the cloud of smoke hanging there almost constantly led him to break his pledge. The man who does not smoke is annoyed to extremes by the smoke of others; but he soon ceases to notice it if he fires up and joins them.

Now, however, Skelding paused on the step and shook his light overcoat with the idea of getting the smoke smell out of it. Never before had the fresh air seemed so good to him. He drew it into his lungs with satisfaction and relief. Then he reached into a pocket of that overcoat and took out part of a package of cigarettes.

“There!” he exclaimed; “by the eternal hills, I am done with you forever! You are the badge of degeneracy.”

He threw the package away. It seemed to him that at that moment he had severed the last strand that had bound him to the Chickering set.

There was untold satisfaction in the feeling of relief and freedom which came to him. He looked back on what he had been, and wondered at his folly. He contemplated his association with Rupert Chickering and his pals, wondering that he could have found any satisfaction in such company. No matter what happened, he was done with them.