s the king's fist passed over his shoulder.

Browning reeled backward, having received a terrific crack on the ear.

If Frank had not been slightly dazed he might have followed the
sophomore closely, but he was a bit slow in getting after Bruce.

For a few seconds the boys gave an exhibition of scientific sparring
which would have proved very interesting to their comrades if all had
not been too busy to watch them.

Frank Merriwell contiuued to laugh, and it had been said at Yale that
he was most dangerous in an encounter when he laughed.

"You came near doing it, Browning," he admitted, "but it was rather
tricky on your part. I wasn't looking for a fight."

"You will get many things you are not looking for before you have been
at Yale much longer," returned the king.

"Think so?"

"Dead sure."

The two lads seemed to be very evenly matched, save that Merriwell was
the more catlike on his feet. Browning was solid, and it took a terrific
blow to stagger him. Merriwell was plainly the more scientific. He could
get in and away from his foe in a most successful manner, but he saw
that in the confined limits of a ring Browning's rush would be difficult
to escape.

What the result of this encounter might have been cannot be told, for
two freshmen suddenly appeared and gave the alarm that at least a
hundred sophomores were coming in a body to aid their comrades.

A moment later the sophs appeared, hurrying along the street toward the
scene of the encounter.

"'Umpty-seven! 'Umpty-seven! Rah! rah! 'rah!"

Then the signal was given for the freshmen to break away and take to
flight, which they promptly did.

"Oh, soph--oh, my poor soph!" cried many taunting voices.

"Good-evening, gentlemen!" called Bandy Robinson. "Shall I toss you down
soap and towels?"

"Say, fellows," cried Lucy Little, "don't you think it is rather warm
out this evening?"

"Hello! hello!" shouted Rattleton. "Has it been raining, or did we have
a small shower?"

Then Merriwell's beautiful baritone voice pitched the chorus of a
familiar negro melody, in which the triumphant and delighted freshmen
joined:

"Git erway from de window, mah love an' mah dove!
Git erway from de window--don't yeh heah?
Come eround some odder night,
For dere's gwine ter be er fight,
An' dar'll be razzers er-flyin' through de air."

The sophomores retired to a safe distance and then challenged the
freshmen to come out and fight. They called the