"Say," spoke Frank steadily, though with a flashing eye, "I'll bet you that my friend here—understand, my friend, Ned Foreman—would prove as good a catcher as he has to my knowledge run a business where he was trusted and did his duty well. I'll make another bet—you'll be the second-rate scholar you are now two years further on, when my friend is the boss of some surveying camp, where the smartest fellow is the one who has learned the cooking and science both—not a smattering—but from the ground up."
"Yah!" yawped Banbury, but he saw something in Frank's eye that warned him to sheer off promptly.
"You'll run up against a few cads like that fellow," explained Frank to Ned. "Use 'em up in one chapter, and stick to the real friends I'll introduce you to."
"Jordan, you're a true-blue brick," declared Ned heartily, "but I know from experience how these things go——"
"There's the rally whistle for our crowd, so I've got to go," interrupted
Frank; "but four o'clock at my room. You come, or I'll come and fetch you."
Frank bolted off for the campus. As he neared his group of friends he observed the Banbury crowd, just rejoined by their leader and Durkin. Banbury was pointing at Frank and saying something, derisively hailed by his companions. Then Frank saw his stanch champion, Bob Upton, spring forward with clenched fists. Frank hurried his steps, guessing out the situation, and anxious to rescue his impetuous friend from an outbreak.
"Hi, chef!" howled out Durkin, as Frank approached, and Frank knew that the mean-spirited cads had been spreading the story of his meeting with Ned Foreman.
"What have you got to say about it, huh? Who are you?" Frank heard Bob cry out angrily, as he came nearer to the crowd.
Frank could not repress a start as he observed the boy whom Bob was facing.
He was a newcomer—he was Gill Mace. It appeared that the nephew of the
Tipton jeweler had been sent to the same school as Frank.
Gill Mace looked as mean as ever. There was a sneer on his face. He was loudly dressed, or rather overdressed. His uncle had probably provided him with plenty of spending money, for he was jingling some coins in his pocket. His money and his natural cheek had evidently made him "solid" with Banbury and the others, for they seemed to be upholding his braggart insolence.