ood pitching
ability. But he is erratic. Sometimes he pitches wonderfully. Then the
very next time he will fall away down. I am convinced that what he needs
as much as anything else is the right kind of encouragement."

"I consider him one of the very best of the new men who have come up
with pitching ambitions," said Merriwell. "I have noticed the things you
say."

"You were kind enough some time ago to recommend him to my notice," Kirk
went on, as if feeling his way. "You would be glad to help him,
perhaps."

"I shall be very glad to help him, if I can, and to serve you in any
way, Kirk. But you know he doesn't like me very well. There must be a
willingness on both sides, you see--just as it takes two to make a
quarrel!"

"I haven't sounded him, but I fancy he would be willing. He isn't doing
any good lately. You may have noticed that, too?"

"Yes."

The waiter brought the things ordered, and went away again.

"That _Crested Foam_ affair is the cause, I fancy," Dunstan Kirk went
on, breaking a cracker and helping himself to some cheese.

Frank Merriwell had thought the same, but he did not wish to say so.

"He hasn't acted right since then. And by right, I mean natural, you
understand! I suppose it grinds him to know that such a fellow as Barney
Lynn could drug and rob him in that way."

Merriwell flashed Dunstan Kirk a quick look. It was evident that the
captain of the Yale baseball-team did not know that Buck Badger was
intoxicated when he was lured aboard the excursion steamer, _Crested
Foam_.

A similar imperfect knowledge of the true condition of affairs at that
time had been noticed by Merriwell in the conversation of others. The
newspapers in the notices of the burning of the steamer had given
attention chiefly to Lynn, merely stating briefly that Badger had been
drugged and robbed by the ex-boat-keeper.

"I shouldn't think it would be a pleasant reflection," Frank answered.

"Very humiliating to a man of Badger's character. And it has just taken
the heart out of him. Until that time he was one of the most promising
of the new pitchers at Yale. I was expecting good things from him. Now
he seems to be nothing but a blighted 'has-been!'"

Merriwell smiled.

"And of all the sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

"Just so," assented Kirk. "It's too bad to see a capable fellow go to
the bone pile! I don't like it. I talked with him and tried to encoura