“You’re not going to turn author, are you?” asked Bart.
“To some extent—perhaps,” nodded Frank. “I am thinking of giving some of my time to the work, which I find very pleasant, even though I have been forced to do it here in snatches and under great difficulty. When the idea came to me, I thought of putting it off till after leaving college, but it preyed upon me till I was forced to sit down and begin the work. Once begun, it has forced me to push it through to completion. I have written many a night when other fellows were sleeping, and I was supposed to be in bed myself.”
“What is it, anyway—a novel?”
“No.”
“Then what——”
“You’ll see when it is published. I think it will contain a lot of good advice.”
Bart nodded.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “If I had not had you for an example, Merriwell, there’s no telling what I’d be now. I’m certain I must have developed into a cigarette fiend.”
“And cigarette fiends never can be strong until they give up the things forever,” asserted Frank. “Every day a fellow smokes cigarettes on this end of life he wipes off a day on the other end. He is cutting his life shorter day by day, though he may not know it. It’s true, Hodge, and it makes me feel bad for some of the foolish chaps who think they are sporty and up to date because they smoke the little paper-covered life-destroyers.”
“That’s all right,” agreed Bart; “but there are some fellows who do not smoke cigarettes, and who cannot play ball.”