“Hello, little Merrill!” Young Merrill looked up from his billiards.
“Glengarry, by all the gods!” throwing down his cue, and rushing at Ranald. “Where in this lonely universe have you been these many months, and how are you, old chap?” Merrill was excited.
“All right, Merrill?” inquired the deep voice.
“Right, so help me—” exclaimed Merrill, solemnly, lifting up his hand. “He's inquiring after my morals,” he explained to the men who were crowding about; “and I don't give a blank blank who knows it,” continued little Merrill, warmly, “my present magnificent manhood,” smiting himself on the breast, “I owe to that same dear old solemnity there,” pointing to Ranald.
“Shut up, Merrill, or I'll spank you,” said Ranald.
“You will, eh?” cried Merrill, looking at him. “Look at him vaunting his beastly fitness over the frail and weak. I say, men, did you ever behold such condition! See that clear eye, that velvety skin, that—Oh, I say! pax! pax! peccavi!”
“There,” said Ranald, putting him down from the billiard-table, “perhaps you will learn when to be seen.”
“Brute,” murmured little Merrill, rubbing the sore place; “but ain't he fit?” he added, delightedly. And fit he looked. Four years of hard work and clean living had done for him everything that it lies in years to do. They had made of the lank, raw, shanty lad a man, and such a man as a sculptor would have loved to behold. Straight as a column he stood two inches over six feet, but of such proportions that seeing him alone, one would never have guessed his height. His head and neck rose above his square shoulders with perfect symmetry and poise. His dark face, tanned now to a bronze, with features clear-cut and strong, was lit by a pair of dark brown eyes, honest, fearless, and glowing with a slumbering fire that men would hesitate to stir to flame. The lines of his mouth told of self-control, and the cut of his chin proclaimed a will of iron, and altogether, he bore himself with an air of such quiet strength and cool self-confidence that men never feared to follow where he led. Yet there was a reserve about him that set him a little apart from men, and a kind of shyness that saved him from any suspicion of self-assertion. In vain he tried to escape from the crowd that gathered about him, and more especially from the foot-ball men, who utterly adored him.
“You can't do anything for a fellow that doesn't drink,” complained Starry Hamilton, the big captain of the foot-ball team.
“Drink! a nice captain you are, Starry,” said Ranald, “and Thanksgiving so near.”