t.

While they had been talking in front of the opera house, a small boy was
standing near them, his hands clasped and an ecstatic look of happiness
on his face, while his eyes were not taken off Frank Merriwell for a
moment. When Frank had started to cross the street with the others, the
boy heaved a sigh.

A gentleman who was passing stopped and looked at the boy in surprise.

"Well, my little man," said the gentleman, "what is the trouble? You
look as if you had seen a vision."

"I've jest seen somebody I never thought I'd see," said the boy. "Oh,
I'd like to grow up and be famous like him! It must be fine to be
famous."

"My boy," said the gentleman, encouragingly, "if you live you may be a
great man some day."

"I can't never be like the feller I've just seen."

"Why, who could this wonderful person have been? I didn't know there was
such a famous man stopping in Camden at present. Was it the governor of
the State?"

"Naw! Somebody bigger'n him!"

"A United States Senator, perhaps?"

"Senators ain't in it with this feller!"

"Really! You surprise and interest me. It could not have been the
President of the United States?"

"Bigger feller than the Prince of Wales! Oh, if I could grow up to be
like him!"

"Now I am astounded!" exclaimed the gentleman. "Who can this wonderful
person be? Won't you tell me his name?"

"His name is Frank Merriwell, and he is a lollypolooser! He's the most
wonderful feller living in the whole world."

"Frank Merriwell?" repeated the gentleman, in perplexity. "It's strange
I never heard of him. What has he ever done?"

"Done?" cried the boy, excitedly and enthusiastically. "What ain't he
done? He's traveled round the world, shot panthers and Greasers in South
America, gorillas in Africa, tigers in India, elephants in Ceylon, and
bears and other critters out West in this country. Done? Why, he made a
bicycle trip across the country from New York to San Francisco, and he
licked everybody that tried to bother him on the way. Done? Mister, he
goes to Yale College, and he is the greatest football player in the
world! He pitches on the Yale nine, and he wiped up the earth with
Harvard and Princeton this spring. Done? If there's a thing that feller
ain't done an' can't do, I want ter know it!"

The gentleman was gasping for breath.

"Really!" he said, "a most remarkable person! And you want to grow up
and be like him?"

"If I thought I could--if I ever did, I'd die happy