“You should know better. You’re old enough.”
“But I’d like to be a little bit of a tin hero to somebody,” the queer sophomore sobbed. “I’m going to do something. I have made up my mind to do something to produce notice. What would you advise?”
“Shoot yourself,” said Bruce gravely. “You’ll get an obituary notice.”
“Thanks!” retorted Jack. “I am not seeking posthumous glory, my wise friend. I don’t know of anything I have less use for. I want to do something that will make a lot of stunning girls cuddle round me like flies around a molasses-barrel. Now, if I could only take part in a duel!”
“You will ‘duel’ to avoid such a method of obtaining glory,” said Bruce.
Jack gasped.
“Air!” he moaned faintly.
“That’s all anybody finds in your vicinity,” said Bruce, moving away.
Next to Merriwell, Dick Starbright seemed the most popular with the girls. The handsome freshman giant had won his spurs on the football-field. Having the build of a Spartan gladiator, the rosy face of a boy, and the pleasant manners of a Yale gentleman, it was not strange that he should find himself almost constantly the center of a bevy of handsome girls. And he knew what it meant when, in a careless, apparently thoughtless, manner, some of them rested their hands on his arm for a moment. They wanted to feel his muscle!