THE MEDAL LIBRARY

FAMOUS COPYRIGHTED STORIES

FOR BOYS, BY FAMOUS AUTHORS

This is an ideal line for boys of all ages. It contains juvenile masterpieces by the most popular writers of interesting fiction for boys. Among these may be mentioned the works of Burt L. Standish, detailing the adventures of Frank Merriwell, the hero, of whom every American boy has read with admiration. Frank is a truly representative American lad, full of character and a strong determination to do right at any cost. Then, there are the works of Horatio Alger, Jr., whose keen insight into the minds of the boys of our country has enabled him to write a series of the most interesting tales ever published. This line also contains some of the best works of Oliver Optic, another author whose entire life was devoted to writing books that would tend to interest and elevate our boys.

PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK

To be Published During December

To be Published During November

Horatio Alger, Jr.

The greatest and most famous writer of rattling good tales of adventure for boys, was Horatio Alger, Jr. He is the Dickens of juvenile literature. His best works are published in the Medal Library at ten cents per copy. For sale by all newsdealers.

ALGER, HORATIO, JR.

42. Young Acrobat, The.

50. Dean Dunham.

52. From Farm Boy to Senator.

61. Erie Train Boy, The.

87. Five Hundred Dollar Check, The.

118. Ned Newton; or, The Adventures of a New York Bootblack.

122. Tom Brace.

130. From Canal Boy to President.

138. Striving for Fortune.

154. Paul, the Peddler.

159. Phil, the Fiddler.

163. Slow and Sure.

166. Try and Trust.

170. Strong and Steady.

175. Strive and Succeed.

181. Brave and Bold.

187. Bound to Rise.

192. Tom, the Bootblack.

198. Only an Irish Boy.

202. Risen From the Ranks.

212. Julius, the Street Boy.

221. Young Outlaw, The.

228. Cash Boy, The.

234. Store Boy, The.

243. Adrift in New York.

252. Luke Walton.

260. Driven From Home.

264. Hector’s Inheritance.

268. Do and Dare.

272. Facing the World.

277. In a New World.

282. Herbert Carter’s Legacy.

If these books are ordered by mail, add four cents per copy to cover postage.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK

Frank Merriwell on the Boulevards

OR

ASTONISHING THE EUROPEANS

By

BURT L. STANDISH

Author of

“The Merriwell Stories“

STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1899

By STREET & SMITH

────

FRANK MERRIWELL ON THE BOULEVARDS

FRANK MERRIWELL ON THE BOULEVARDS

────────

CHAPTER I.
“MADEMOISELLE MYSTERIE.”

“Well, fellows, what do you think of Paris?” asked Frank Merriwell, settling himself into a comfortable position on his chair.

With his three Yale friends, Frank had been in the French capital a day. The party had crossed from England the previous day, and, after a good night’s sleep, the first for three of the party on French shore, they had sallied forth to spend the day seeing the sights of Paris.

“Paris!” cried Harry Rattleton, striking an attitude in the middle of the room; “Paris is a—a relief!”

“I should say so!” nodded Jack Diamond, standing by a window, from which he could look out upon the brilliantly lighted Place Vendome, in the center of which rose the majestic Vendome Column, the most imposing monument of all Europe. “After London, Paris is heaven!”

“Haw!” grunted Bruce Browning, who was in his favorite attitude of rest, stretched at full length on a comfortable couch. “Paris would be all right, if it wasn’t full of Frenchmen.”

“As for that,” smiled Frank, “it is full of Englishmen, Americans, and people from all over the world, and every well-educated Frenchman can talk English, you know.”

“Paris is beautiful!” cried Diamond. “Look at that column out there! Just think, the bronze from which it was built was furnished by Austrian and Russian cannon captured in battle by the French! From base to summit, it is covered with bronze figures, in relief, forming a miniature army, with cannon, horses, and accouterments, ascending by a spiral road to the massive figure of Napoleon at the top. Oh, it is a sight for the eyes of the world!”

“The statue, yes,” nodded Frank. “Think of robing Napoleon in the garb of a Roman emperor! That is the one thing in bad taste about the column. But that was not always so.”

“How’s that?” exclaimed Rattleton. “Have they changed his clothes from the original suit given him?”

“That is not the original statue at the top of the column.”

“No? Why, how——”

“After Waterloo, when the Bourbons once more governed France, they took Napoleon’s statue down. The original one represented him in the cocked hat and old gray coat, immortalized on many a field of victory.”

“And they never put it back?”

“In its place, they erected a monstrous fleur-de-lis. However, this combination of the emblem of the Bourbon family and a memorial of Napoleon was perfectly absurd, and the people protested against it. Louis Philippe yielded to the desire of the masses, and the present figure of Napoleon was erected. This monument was shamefully treated by the communists.”

“Eh! Why, they didn’t bother themselves with that, did they?”

“They pulled it down. It was necessary to lay a thick bed of tan along the street, to mitigate the shock when it fell. The national troops arrived in time to prevent its complete ruin, and it was reconstructed as you see it.”

“It’s strange that people like the communists, nihilists, anarchists, and that sort, always, when possible, destroy everything they can in the way of sculpture, architecture, and art. They seem possessed by a senseless rage against the beautiful. Such human beings plainly show the low and brutal in their natures. They rob themselves of sympathy by their acts, and make themselves detested, as they should be. God did not put us into the world to hate and destroy,” declared Diamond.

“Oh, say, give us a rest!” grunted Browning. “I’m tired.”

“As usual.”

“Now, don’t fling that!” growled the big Yale man.

“Merriwell has kept us on the jump all day, seeing things. He trotted us from the Trocadero to Prison Mazas, and that is pretty nearly from one end of the city to the other. He has shown us all the sights——”

“I beg your pardon!” exclaimed Merry, with a laugh. “I haven’t begun to show you anything of the sights of Paris. All I tried to do was give you a general idea of the city.”

“Dow the hickens—I mean, how the dickens—you ever learned so much about Paris is what puzzles me,” burst forth Rattleton.

“It’s a wonder to all of us,” admitted Diamond. “Why, you seem perfectly familiar with the city, Frank.”

“To a certain extent, I am familiar with it. You know, I spent three weeks here in company with our old friend, Ephraim Gallup, and my guardian, poor Professor Scotch, and I was on the hustle all the time, so I got the lay of the land pretty well.”

“But, great Scott! why didn’t you ever say anything about it?”

“Never had occasion.”

“Didn’t you meet with any adventures in Paris worth relating?”

“Oh, I met with adventures enough, I assure you.”

“Pleasant adventures?” asked Harry, with a grin and a wink.

“Well, I hardly think they’d be designated as pleasant.”

“Lovely girls, and all that sort of thing?”

“There was one girl concerned.”

“Only one?”

“She was quite enough, under the circumstances. She was an anarchist.”

“Huah!” grunted Bruce.

“Whew!” whistled Harry.

“Jove!” exclaimed Jack.

“I fell in with a New York newspaper reporter, who had been sent over to investigate and write up the recent bomb outrages in this city. Being seen with him, I was spotted by the anarchists, who regarded him as a spy. I was warned to leave France, but didn’t fancy being driven out that way.”

“Well, that was interesting!” ejaculated Diamond.

“Rather!” drawled Bruce.

“It was hot stuff!” said Rattleton.

“It was the night after Grand Prix, the great French horse-race, that I received my first warning. It came from a masked woman. Wynne, the reporter, followed her, but she slipped him. On the night after Grand Prix, all Paris turns out to enjoy itself, and be gay. It was at the Jardin de Paris that I saw her again, in the midst of the mob that was dancing and singing there in the open air. I caught her by the wrist, and she tried to stab me.”

“Whew!” again whistled Rattleton.

“Huah!” once more grunted Browning.

“Jove!” was Diamond’s repeated ejaculation.

“Her friends were on hand to aid her, and she managed to break away, and slip me, as she had Wynne. Afterward, at a place called the Red Flag, I ran across Wynne. Anarchists resorted there, and they tried to stop us both. Wynne got away, but I was roped in. Somebody rapped the senses out of me, and I came to myself in a dungeon-like place, a captive.”

They knew he was telling the truth, for Frank Merriwell never lied, but it dazed them to think he had never mentioned the matter before.

“What happened next?” breathlessly asked Harry.

“The woman, who was known as ‘Mademoiselle Mysterie,’ came there to kill me. I was bound and gagged, and she had a dagger to finish me off. I couldn’t squeal, and so I smiled at her. Then what do you think happened?”

“Can’t guess.”

“You tell.”

“Go on!”

“She fell in love with me,” said Frank quietly.

“What?”

“The deuce!”

“Come off!”

“She did,” nodded Merry, smiling. “She decided not to kill me. She resolved to save me, even though I had been condemned to die by the bomb-throwers, who were convinced that I was dangerous for them. Then, when the real executioner came into the cellar to do the job, she struck him senseless with a stone, and set me free.”

Bruce Browning sat up, and stared at Frank.

“I’ll admit that you are the queerest chap alive!” he growled. “You had such an adventure here in Paris, and yet you never told any of us a word about it! Merriwell, I don’t understand you, and I thought I knew you pretty well.”

Now Frank laughed outright.

“I had no occasion to say anything about it, you know.”

“Most fellows would have made an occasion. Supposing the story of that adventure had been known at college. You’d been a king-pin from the very first.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You know, a fellow’s record before he enters Yale doesn’t cut much ice there. It’s the record he makes afterward that counts. In almost any other college it is different. A man’s standing amounts to a great deal elsewhere. At Yale, he makes a standing for himself. If he attempts to bolster himself up by tales of what he has done, he is regarded with suspicion and contempt. You know this is true. It is to his direct disadvantage to boast.”

“But it was not necessary for you to boast. You might have told your friends. You never told any of us.”

“Never!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Not a word!” came reproachfully from Rattleton.

“Not even when we were coming here,” growled Browning resentfully.

“Well, I’ve told you now, you know.”

“Not everything,” said Jack eagerly. “Go on. How did you escape?”

“Fought my way out through dynamiters, aided by the woman. The men were in a room where a Russian manufacturer of infernal machines was explaining how his devilish inventions worked. He had all his bombs spread out on a table. I got through that room, and out of the building, and I was lucky. What happened behind me, I can only surmise. It is certain one of those bombs was exploded, and it exploded others. The building was wrecked, the anarchists were killed, and among them was found the body of the woman who had saved me, their queen. She is buried at Mont Parnasse, and I paid for the stone that marks her grave.”

Browning struggled to his feet, and stood there, colossal, imposing, outraged, his hands on his hips.

“I have considered you my friend,” he said; “but I feel like punching you now! Why, you even trotted us round all day, and never once mentioned this!”

“I didn’t want to bore you.”

“Bore us—bore us with a yarn like that! Why, it’s exciting enough to furnish a plot for a novel! And you actually passed through such an adventure here in Paris?”

“Didn’t I say so? Do you think I’m drawing the long bow?”

“No, but——”

“But what?”

“It is so remarkable. Why, you came to Yale in the quietest way possible. Any one might have taken you for a country lad just getting out into the world, for all of anything you had to tell of yourself.”

“What if I had told the story I’ve just related to you? What if I had related a number of yarns about my adventures in various parts of the world? What if I had begun at college by prating of the things I had done?”

“You’d been set down as a howling liar!” exploded Rattleton.

“Exactly,” nodded Merry. “If I had an inclination to speak of such things, I put it aside, and kept corked up. You need not set it down as modesty, unless you like; you may call it horse-sense.”

They talked over Frank’s adventure, just related, for some time, asking him many questions about it, for it was a most fascinating story.

“Those must have been tot old himes—I mean hot old times,” said Rattleton.

“I should say so!” agreed Diamond. “You struck a circus in Paris, and that’s straight! I hardly think anything like that will happen while you are here this time.”

“Not likely,” admitted Merry. “I don’t believe I care about having anything like that happen again. It’s well enough to talk about, but I was rather too near being snuffed out to enjoy it at the time.”

There came a timid knock on the door.

“Come!” called Frank.

The door opened falteringly, and Mr. Maybe, Frank’s tutor, looked in hesitatingly.

“Mr. Merriwell,” he said, “I think you had better retire. You must be tired, and, you know, your studies——”

“Hang it, Mr. Maybe!” exclaimed Merry; “I’m not going to begin cramming again the moment we reach Paris. You must give me two or three days to look round with my friends, and enjoy the sights.”

“You have wasted to-day, sir, and——”

“Wasted it? No. We’ve taken in the streets, the boulevards, the Seine, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Champs-Élysées, the Bourse, and so forth. To-morrow, we will visit other places of interest—Versailles, the Trocadero, the Grand Opera-House, perhaps, the Eiffel Tower. There are thousands of beautiful things to be seen in Paris, Mr. Maybe, and I advise you to get out and circulate. It will do you good.”

“You must have been reading the guide-books, to know so much about Paris,” said Maybe. “I’m going to bed, and I advise you to do the same. Good night.”

He retired, closing the door.

“He doesn’t even dream you ever saw Paris before,” said Rattleton.

“Well,” grunted Browning, from the couch, on which he was stretched once more, “I think I’ll take his advice, and go to bed. I know I shall sleep like a top to-night. I don’t believe an earthquake would disturb me.”

“But your snoring is likely to disturb everybody else on this floor,” declared Rattleton. “I’m glad Merriwell has taken pity on me, and arranged it so I don’t have to sleep with you. You’ll have an entire bed and a whole room to yourself to-night.”

“What a relief that will be!” murmured the big fellow. “How sweetly I will slumber!”

He did not notice that his three companions looked at each other knowingly, while Frank changed a laugh into a choking cough. He did not suspect what was in store for him that night, so he arose, bade good night to the others, and went to his room.

CHAPTER II.
BRUCE’S LIVELY NIGHT.

Bruce really was tired. Big, strong fellow though he was, his laziness overcame the energy it seemed natural he should possess, and a day of hustling quite exhausted him.

He was glad to have a room by himself, and he rolled into bed with a satisfied grunt, muttering:

“Now, nothing will disturb me till morning.”

In a short time, he was asleep, and snoring. His slumbers, however, were rudely disturbed. At first, it seemed like a dream. He fancied he could hear the gong of a fire-engine that was thundering down upon him, while he seemed helpless to get out of the way and escape. The gong pounded furiously, and he struggled with all his might to flee. In the midst of the awful effort, he awoke, sweat starting from every pore. The infernal clatter and bang of the bell continued, and it sounded right there in that room.

With a snort, Bruce sat up.

“Fire, I’ll bet a hundred dollars!” he blurted, as he made a dive to get out of bed.

His feet became entangled with the bedclothes, and he landed sprawling, with a terrible thud that knocked the breath from his body.

Clatter! bang! ding! bang! clatter!

That bell was keeping it up at a fearful rate, and Browning floundered around on the floor, becoming more and more helplessly entangled in the bedclothing.

“This is awful!” he groaned. “I’m tying myself all up here, and I’ll be burned to death! The old hotel is afire, and that’s the alarm!”

He was tempted to uplift his voice, and roar aloud for aid, but refrained from doing so, and forcibly tore himself free from the entangling clothing.

“Keep cool, old man!” he said, as he got upon his feet. “The people who lose their heads at fires get burned. The ones who keep cool escape.”

Then he found the gas, and turned it on, but could not find a match. He rushed round the room, bumping against chairs, barking his shins, and bruising himself generally. Over one of the chairs he fell, and he got so tangled up with it that it really seemed that the chair was clinging to him, like a living creature.

“Oh, yes!” he snarled. “Throw me down, and then pile onto me, will you! Try to hold me down, so I’ll be burned to death, will you! Punch your legs into my ribs, will you! Hit me in the eye, and upper-cut me on the chin, will you! Get out!”

He flung the chair from him, with great violence. There was a crash, a thud on the floor, a whirring sound and the alarm-bell ceased to ring.

Rather dazed, Bruce got up. He was still trembling, but he made a search for his vest, found it, and secured a match.

The stillness which followed the racket of the bell and the frantic gyrations of the big Yale man seemed awful, and he was more frightened than ever. If he had wished to shout then, it is doubtful if he could have raised a cry that would have been heard outside his door.

The first match he struck spluttered and went out. With the second, he lighted the gas, the odor of which filled the room. Then he looked around, and the sight that met his eyes filled him with wonder.

The chair he had flung across the room had struck a small shelf, and knocked down a clock of the forty-nine-cent variety, smashing it, and scattering its works over the carpet. As he stood there, glaring at its ruins, the truth began to dawn upon him.

“It was that thundering alarm-clock!” he snorted. “The thing went off, and spoiled my slumbers! There is no fire and no danger! I’ve been fooled by a bargain-counter alarm-clock!”

He felt like jumping on the ruins of the poor time-piece, but remembered that he was barefooted, and it would be sure to hurt him. Then his eye caught sight of a slip of paper attached to a ring in the case of the clock. He picked it up. On the paper were these words, written in English:

“Good night!

Sleep tight!”

Browning flung the clock-case into a corner, uttering a “woosh” of indignation.

“That’s what I call a pretty cheap joke!” he exploded. “My first night by myself, and they couldn’t let me rest in peace! Oh, I’ll have revenge for this!”

He gathered up the clothing, and piled it back onto the bed, then turned out the gas, and rolled in once more.

“It’s like one of Merriwell’s old tricks,” he thought, as he buried himself under the twisted clothing, and prepared to make up for lost time.

Being really tired, it was not long before his nerves quieted down, and he began to snore once more. He was dreaming a very pleasant dream, when there was a repetition of the former racket. Browning groaned, and stirred. Then, with a snort, he sat up.

“Murder!” he gurgled. “I thought I’d smashed the old thing so it couldn’t go off again!”

He flung himself out of bed, saying some very ugly words, and lighted the gas once more. The remnants of the clock he had smashed lay quietly in the corner, but the racket of an alarm-bell came from another part of the room. Furiously he began to search for it, and, in about five minutes, he found it in the top drawer of the dressing-case.

To the clock was attached a card, on which was written:

“Excuse me, please. I hope you are resting well.”

Mad? Browning almost frothed at the mouth. He opened the window, and flung the clock out with great violence. Then he slammed down the window, turned off the gas, and went back to bed.

“I’ll get even for this, if it takes me the rest of my life!” he grumbled, as he settled down, and tried to make himself comfortable in the twisted bed.

Being exhausted, it did not take him long to doze again. Then another clock began operations. Bruce made a flying leap from the bed, striking the floor before he was fairly awake.

“Ten thousand furies!” he roared, as he chased around the room about twenty times, and broke the world’s record for the two-mile dash. “It’s another one! Where is the fiendish thing? Let me get my hands on it! Oh, I won’t do a thing to it!”

In the course of four or five minutes, he found it, hidden behind a picture. A tag was attached to it, and on the tag was written:

“You must be very, very tired.”

“Tired!” howled the big fellow. “I should say so! This is enough to make anybody tired!”

He dropped the clock to the floor, but it continued to rattle away. With an exclamation of anger, quite forgetting that his feet were not encased in boots, he drew off and kicked the clock up against the wall, with all his strength, breaking his great toe-nail, and knocking the skin off the two neighboring toes.

“Yow!” he howled, as he held onto his injured toes with both hands, and hopped around the room on the other foot. “Oh, my goodness! I’ve maimed myself for life! I’ll be a helpless cripple as long as I live!”

The clock gave a sort of derisive rattle, and stopped.

Bruce sat down on the edge of the bed, and examined his injured foot. After awhile, he bound up his toes with a handkerchief, and turned in again.

“I guess this is the end of it,” he decided. “They’ve spoiled my night’s rest! It’s an outrage!”

His nerves were not near the surface, so they soon became quiet, and, despite what had happened, despite the injury to his foot, he began to snore again. Then the fourth clock started out to get in its work. When Browning awoke, and realized what was taking place, he was wild. He made another jump, to get out of bed, caught his feet in the bedclothing again, and struck on his forehead and nose, barking the latter, and causing it to bleed slightly.

“All the fiends of the hot place couldn’t devise greater torture!” he frothed. “It’s villainous! It’s criminal! I’ll be a raving maniac before morning!”

He began to fling things around at a furious rate in his mad search for the clock. At last, he found it in his grip, where it had been carefully tucked. When he yanked it out, it flew from his fingers, and rolled away. He scrambled after it on his hands and knees, upsetting a marble-topped table, which struck him a terrible thump on the back of the head, producing a swelling almost as large as a hen’s egg.

When Browning got hold of the clock at last, he was the maddest man in all France. He rushed to the window, and slammed it open. Then he hurled the clock into the street, with a fearful violence, barely missing a passing pedestrian, who shouted something about bombs, and took to his heels.

In yanking the clock from the grip, he had torn off a bit of paper. On the paper he read these words:

“Hope this doesn’t disturb you, old man.”

It must be confessed that Bruce Browning made a few “dark-blue” remarks, which would not look well in print. Then he searched all around the room for another clock, but could not find one.

“It’s the last of them,” he decided, looking at his watch. “A quarter to three, and I haven’t slept ten minutes thus far to-night. Oh, I’ll be in fine condition to-morrow!”

But he felt that the trick must be worn out, and he went back to bed. Exactly twenty minutes later, just as he was beginning to breathe heavily, another clock began to bang away. Browning awoke, and groaned.

“What! again?” he almost sobbed.

He got up, and searched for the clock. It took him four minutes to find it hidden among the slats of his bed.

As in the other cases, a slip of paper was attached to the thing, and he read:

“Don’t you care, old man—it’ll soon be daylight.”

He dropped the clock, and it went bounding merrily under the bed, keeping up its cheerful racket.

“Come out here!” he roared, thrusting himself after it. “Don’t try to dodge me! Don’t try to hide from me!”

He touched it, with a frantic sweep of his arm, but knocked it still farther away.

Then he tore a slat from the bed, and struck at the clock, knocking it out on the farther side. When he tried to back out from beneath the bed, the frame had him pinned across the shoulders, and he was forced to lift it before he could get out. In a burst of anger, he turned it over on its side. Then he got at the clock with the slat.

“Oh, I’ll settle you!” he roared, making a crack at the clock, but missing it entirely. “I’ll destroy you! I’ll hammer the stuffing out of ye! I’ll annihilate ye! Take that—and that! Yow!”

A piece of glass from the clock flew up and cut his face. The coil-spring hopped out, sailed through the air, and settled around his neck.

He dropped the slat, and caught at the spring.

“Come off, here!” he snarled, yanking at it. He cut his neck, and nearly tore his left ear from his head in getting the spring off.

Bleeding, perspiring, furious, he sat there in the middle of the floor, and looked around. The room was a spectacle. Furniture was smashed and scattered all about. The bed was upset, and the battered cases and scattered works of three clocks lay around, and a mirror showed him that he was almost the greatest wreck in the room.

“To-morrow,” he hissed, through his clenched teeth, “to-morrow, I shall be a murderer, for I shall kill the fiend who devised this piece of business!”

He decided that it was useless to try to sleep. He filled his pipe, and sat in an easy chair by the window. On the chair he planted himself in a comfortable position, prepared to wait for the next outbreak, and nip it in the bud. Exhausted nature, however, conquered. He smoked ten minutes, perhaps, and the pipe fell from his mouth.

It was fortunate for him that the next clock got “into gear” just when it did, for it aroused him so that he realized something was burning. He jumped up, with a yell, for his pajamas were afire. With frantic haste, he tore them off, smothering the fire, which had been caused by a spark from his pipe, by the aid of a rug. And the clock played a merry accompaniment while this was taking place.

He found the thing beneath the grate in the fireplace, and it was tagged. On the tag was written:

“Isn’t it just perfectly lovely in Paris!”

Once more he used the window, taking care this time not to hit anybody upon the street. It was near daybreak, and Bruce Browning had spent a very lively night. As the gray streaks of dawn crept in at his window, he gathered some of the bedding in the middle of the floor, and lay down there, where he fell asleep in the midst of the mess.

In the morning, three young men stopped before Bruce Browning’s door, and listened.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Rattleton, with his ear against a panel.

“I can’t see anything,” said Diamond, with his eye to the keyhole.

“Then we will investigate, and find out if he has passed a pleasant night,” said Frank Merriwell, taking a key from his pocket, and preparing to fit it to the lock of the door.

“Eh?” exclaimed Rattleton, staring at the key. “What’s that?”

“Hey!” cried Diamond. “Is that the key to the door?”

“Yes,” nodded Frank, with a smile.

“Where did you get it?”

“Took possession of it last night, after we’d distributed the clocks,” Merry explained. “There’s a spring-lock on all the doors in this hotel, and Browning never missed the key.”

Frank softly inserted the key in the lock, and turned it.

“I’ll bet a cannon wouldn’t arouse him now,” grinned Harry. “Needn’t be so easy, Frank.”

Merry pushed open the door, and the sight that met their gaze filled them with astonishment.

The room was a scene of disorder. Everything was upset, even to the bed. The furniture was scattered about in confusion, and the floor was strewn with the débris of shattered clocks. On the floor beside the overturned bed, Browning was wrapped in a mass of twisted and tangled bedclothing. A sheet was twisted round his throat, and his face was covered with cuts, bruises, and blood. There was blood on the bedding, and it looked as if a sanguinary encounter had taken place there. They came in, and stood looking down at him.

“Wheejiz!” snickered Harry. “It’s plain he had a lively time of it!”

“Looks like he’d fought for his life!” muttered Diamond.

“And he’s still enough to have lost the battle,” said Frank.

“You don’t suppose he was driven to suicide?” gasped Rattleton, in sudden alarm.

“Oh, no,” assured Frank. “Look—he is breathing. Listen—he is muttering some words in his sleep.”

Browning groaned, and thickly muttered:

“Fiends! You have ruined my sleep, but I’ll get square, if I——”

Then the words became an incoherent jumble.

Rattleton grinned.

“Scrate gott, but he did have a lively time of it! Look at this room! It’s a sight!”

“Look at him!” directed Frank. “He’s a sight! How in the world did he get battered and cut up like that?”

“Merriwell,” said Diamond, “he’s sure to be pretty ugly about this when he wakes up.”

“Oh, he’ll get over it. But I don’t believe he’ll forget his second night in Paris as long as he lives.”

“It’s retribution,” declared Rattleton. “Night after night he has tortured me, and kept me awake by his beastly snoring, and he’s been mad enough to eat me when I kicked about it. I didn’t think the clocks would disturb him at all.”

“But it seems that they did,” observed Diamond, with a faint smile.

Rattleton was for sneaking out of the room as quietly as possible, without disturbing Browning, but Frank could not think of leaving without letting Bruce know they had seen him. So they all stood around the big fellow, and sang “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

The big fellow grunted, groaned, kicked—awoke!

For a few moments it was evident he did not catch on to the situation. He lay there, amid the tangled bedding, staring up at the laughing lads, and blinking in a comical manner, so that Rattleton broke down, and began to laugh.

“Huah!” grunted Bruce.

Then Frank and Jack stopped, and Merry said:

“Excuse me, please. I hope this doesn’t disturb you.”

“Waugh!” Bruce struggled to a sitting posture, with the bedspread twisted about his neck like a muffler.

“I hope you are resting well,” snickered Rattleton.

Browning began to tear at the bedspread, a look of rage coming to his bruised and lacerated face.

“You must be very, very tired,” observed Diamond seriously.

A howl of fury escaped Browning’s lips. He looked around the room, and saw the overturned furniture, and the shattered clocks. In a moment, he remembered all the horrors of the previous night.

“You imps of Satan!” he thundered, making a floundering jump to get upon his feet. “I have sworn an oath of vengeance! My time has come! Not one of you leaves this room alive!”

Then his tangled feet tripped him up, and he sprawled on the floor, with a crash, causing the three lads to shout with laughter.

“You seem to be excited, Bruce,” said Frank. “I hope nothing happened in the night to disturb you.”

“Excited!” exploded Browning, tearing at the bedclothes, and ripping a sheet from end to end. “Oh, no, I’m not excited! Let me get my hands on you, Frank Merriwell! You’ll never put up another job like this!”

“You should take something for your nerves,” advised Frank. “It’s plain you have bad dreams. Why don’t you try Mrs. Soothlow’s Wynsling Syrup?”

Browning got hold of a chair, and threw it at Frank, who dodged, and the chair knocked down a mirror.

“You’ll have a nice little bill to pay when you settle for things here,” said Diamond.

“You go to blazes!” cried the enraged giant. “You come round here and grin at me, and you never had sense enough to think up a good practical joke in all your life! Get out of here! Get out lively, if you want to escape with your life!”

“Alas! alas!” exclaimed Frank, with a tragedy pose. “He is mad!”

“You bet I’m mad!” agreed Bruce. “I’m madder than a wet setting hen! I’ll get back at you for this job!”

He got onto his hands and knees, for the purpose of rising, but Merry promptly pushed him over with his foot, causing the big fellow to gnash his teeth.

“Fellows,” said Merry, “we must commit him to an asylum for the violently insane. It is plain that he’s dangerous.”

Browning tore off the baffling bedspread, and again struggled to get up, actually intending to wreak vengeance on them by personal violence; but Merry caught hold of two ends of the spread, and tripped him up with a loop of it, while Rattleton basted him on the head with a pillow, and Diamond picked up all the clothes and flung them on top of him. To finish the job, Merry turned the bedstead over upon him.

“Now, will you be good?” chirped Rattleton.