and fifty dollars."
"The note says five hundred," retorted the stranger tersely, with
a shrug of his shoulders. And there's interest on it, too. And
you haven't paid a dollar. You told me you could get the money
from home."
"I---I thought I could, at that," stammered Cadet Jordan. "But
I wrote my father, and he said he was near bankruptcy-----"
"Near bankruptcy?" almost screamed the stranger. "You young swindler.
You told me your father was a wealthy man!"
"Sh!" begged Jordan tremulously. "Not so loud! Some one will
hear you."
"I don't care who hears me," retorted the stranger in an ugly
tone. "You've been swindling me right along, it seems. Now,
you'll hand me some money to-night, and all of the balance by
next Wednesday, or I'll go straight to the superintendent. Then
you'll lose your nice little berth here. You putting on airs,
and yet you told me how you had rebuked and paid back another
cadet for doing the same breezy thing."
Dick, his cheeks burning with the shame of having allowed himself
to listen to so much, was on the very point of slipping away around
the north end of Cullum Hall. But this last remark gripped him,
holding him feverishly to the spot.
"Prescott, I believe you said the fellow's name was," went on
the stranger.
"Yes," admitted Jordan. "And I put it all over him in a way that
should make anyone else afraid of having me for an enemy!"
Dick's heart gave a great, almost strangling bound. Then it was
quiet again, and his ears seemed preternaturally keen.
So sharp was his hearing, in fact, that he heard a sound that
did not reach the ears of the other cadet or the latter's companion.
It was someone else coming. With all the stealth in the world
Dick now managed to slip around the end of the building and toward
the front.
A cadet had stepped out as though seeking a breath of cool air
between dances. Dick darted forward on tiptoe until he recognized
the oncoming one. It was Douglass, president of the first class.
"Mr. Douglass!" whispered Dick, stopping squarely before his successor
in class honors.
Douglass, without looking at his appealing fellow classman, or opening
his lips to answer, stepped around Prescott.
But Dick caught his unwilling comrade firmly by the arm.
"Douglass," he whispered, "in the name of justice, listen to me
just an instant---a swift instant, too! I think the chance has
come to clear me of the load of dislike and contempt wi
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