“One of the finest in the country,” nodded Frank. “If I have boys of my own, to Fardale they will go. If I had a younger brother, which, unfortunately, I have not, I’d see that he was sent to Fardale.”
“No wonder he’s stuck on Fardale,” said Browning. “It was there he met Elsie Bellwood.”
Frank looked serious.
“And Inza Burrage,” said Carson.
Frank smiled.
Browning was regarding Merry searchingly, and an expression of dissatisfaction settled on his strong face.
“But I didn’t think you’d let anybody, not even Hodge, cut you out with Elsie, Merriwell,” he ventured to say.
Frank turned on the big fellow at once.
“There are lots of things you do not know, Bruce,” he spoke in a very quiet manner. “If you were joking, why that’s all right; but I fancied you spoke earnestly, and, if so, I don’t want you to get any false notions that you know it all.”
“Well, I know how things look from the road. You think a lot of Hodge, but no man has a right to give up a nice girl like Elsie Bellwood just because his particular friend gets struck on her.”