nd mutter:

"Merriwell is to blame for it all, curse him! I won't let him triumph!
The time will come when I'll get square with him! I'll have to stay here
in order to get square, and stay here I will, no matter how I am
treated."

Since his duplicity had been made known and his classmates had turned
against him Ditson had taken to grinding in a fierce manner, and as a
result he had made good progress in his studies. He was determined to
stand ahead of Merriwell in that line, at least, and it really seemed
that he might succeed, unless Frank gave more time to his studies and
less to athletics.

This was not easy for a fellow in Merriwell's position and with his
ardent love for all sorts of manly sports to do. He gave all the time he
could to studies without becoming a greasy grind, but that was not as
much as he would have liked.

To Ditson's disappointment and chagrin Merriwell seemed quite unaware
that his enemy stood ahead of him in his classes. Frank seemed to have
quite forgotten that such a person as Roll Ditson existed.

Ditson was an outcast. The fellow with whom he had roomed had left him
shortly after his treachery was made public, and he was forced to room
alone, as he could get no one to come in with him.

Roll did not mind this so much, however. He pretended that he was far
more exclusive than the average freshman, and he tried to imitate the
ways of the juniors and seniors, some of whom had swell apartments.

Ditson's parents were wealthy, and they furnished him with plenty of
loose change, so that he could cut quite a dash. He had fancied that his
money would buy plenty of friends for him. At first, before his real
character was known, he had picked up quite a following, but he posed as
a superior, which made him disliked by the very ones who helped him
spend his money.

He had hoped to be a leader at Yale, but, to his dismay, he found that
he did not cut much of a figure after all, and Frank Merriwell, a fellow
who never drank or smoked, was far more popular. Then it was that Ditson
conceived a plot to bring Merriwell into ridicule and at the same time
to get in with the enemies of the freshmen--the sophomores--himself.

At last he had learned that at Yale a man is not judged so much by the
money he spends and the wealth of his parents as by his own manly
qualities.

But Ditson was a sneak by nature, and he could not get over it. If he
started out to accomplish anything in a square way, he wa