," echoed Wat.

"Possibly he has too much sense to spend his nights here," said Hodge.
"If I had known that much, I wouldn't have gone back a class.
Merriwell is in the first section, and he is making right along."

"Well, he is a different fellow than I thought he was," asserted Snell.
"Until lately, he has seemed quite a fellow for sport, but he is
degenerating into a drone."

"Such drones are the fellows who get along well in school and in the
world."

"Bah! Give me a fellow with blood in him!" came contemptuously from
Gage.

Leslie had grown desperate, having come to the conclusion that Frank
was not to be cajoled into playing poker any more. He now determined,
of a sudden, that he would take another tack, and see if he could not
anger Merriwell into coming.

Hodge remembered that Gage had tried to injure Frank in the past, and
the dark-eyed plebe was ready to blaze forth in an instant. Although
he did not know it, Gage was treading on the very thin crust that
covered a smoldering volcano.

Leslie was not warned by the fire that gleamed in Bart's eyes, for he
continued:

"If Merriwell persists in staying away--if he does not show up and give
Snell a chance to get square, he is----"

A knock at the door!

It was the regular signal for admittance, and so, after the first start
of alarm, George Harris said:

"Open up quickly. It must be Sam, and, if so, there's something wrong
in the wind."

Wat Snell opened the door, and, to their amazement, into the room
stepped Frank Merriwell!

It was with difficulty that the boys suppressed a shout of welcome.

Snell quickly closed the door, and then the boys rushed at Frank and
shook his hand delightedly.

"You're a sight for sore eyes!" exclaimed Wat Snell, joyously.

"Dot vos so!" agreed Hans. "You vould peen a sighd for a plind man!"

"I will take back anything I said, and swallow what I was going to
say," came from Leslie Gage. "I didn't think it could be possible you
wouldn't come round again, old man."

"Now, we will have a jolly little racket," said George Harris. "And
you want to look out for Merriwell. He is a great bluffer."

"But he doesn't bluff all the time," supplemented Harvey Dare. "I
found out that he held cards occasionally, for I called him a few the
last time he was around."

Frank laughed; it was his old, jolly laugh, suppressed somewhat. He
seemed like himself once more, as Bart Hodge instantly noted. He had
cast off th