“I am, if it came to a fight, but I wouldn’t dare mix it up with him.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’d be a howl, and everyone would say I did it because I was jealous. I’d have to have some mighty good excuse to warrant wading into him.”
“Well, can’t you think of one?”
“No, I can’t. I’d like to get square with him, though.”
“Put him out of business you mean—so he couldn’t pitch for a while?” asked the bully.
“That would do, yes.”
“You might put up a job to burn his hands with acid in chemistry class some day. Just a little burn would do. You could say it was an accident.”
“No, that’s too risky,” remarked Mersfeld, after thinking it over. “I’d like to have it come about naturally. Now if he or his brothers would try some trick, and get caught—suspended by the faculty for a month—or laid off from athletics, that would do. But the Smith fellows seem to have given up pranks lately, and have buckled down to lessons. I guess they’re afraid.”
North did not answer for a few moments. He walked along, apparently deeply thinking. Suddenly he exclaimed: