“Oh, very well; I know it,” agreed the alarmed fellow.
“That has been one of your holds on all your friends. Your friends! Well, here they are! Look at them! Compare them with Frank Merriwell’s friends! Ha, ha, ha! That night I spent with Defarge I came to look the whole matter over, and I saw just how it was that I belonged to our gang. Do you know what we are? Well, we’re outcasts, every one of us. We are compelled to flock by ourselves for company, as other men want nothing to do with us. Merriwell to-day, the man we hate with all our hearts, is better known and more popular than any other man who ever entered Yale. He is the idol of the youth of our country. They regard him as the typical young American. But what are we? We are looked on as snobs, and cads, and sappies. It’s just what is coming to us, and we can’t kick!”
“He must have turned crazy with Defarge!” exclaimed Ives.
“He must!” croaked Hull.
“I turned crazy enough to get some sense into my head. It’s too late for me to ever make anything of myself here in college, but I have resolved to turn over a new leaf, just the same. Even Defarge was given a show on the eleven last fall. Though he had been Merriwell’s open foe, Merriwell did not keep him off the eleven. That man is square as a brick, and that’s the way he gets his friends and holds them. He does hold them, too. You know it, every one of you. Did you ever know one of his friends to go back on him? Never. It’s a wonder how he grapples them to him with hooks of steel.”
“The trouble with him,” said Ives, in an aside to Chickering, “is that he found more than he could handle in Hodge that night. You know when I mean.”
Rupert nodded. Skelding flushed.
“I fought Hodge squarely,” he said, “and he whipped me, just as he can any man here—or any two of you!”
“He’s done for!” said Chickering, with a gesture of sorrowful regret. “He’ll be bowing down and licking the dust off Merriwell’s feet now.”
“That’s a lie!” said Gene. “Merriwell won’t have me, even if I want to. But I am done with this crowd.”