fected it."

Roll Ditson strolled in, smoking a cigarette, and said:

"Hello, Merry! Hello, fellows! What's up? Council of war?"

"Just that," said Dan Dorman. "Merry is perfecting a scheme to put a
horse on Browning."

"Eh? Browning? Great Scott! Is that so? He's a bad man to monkey with.
Better let him alone, Merry."

Ditson had a patronizing way that was offensive to Frank, who had given
him numberless digs; but he was too thick to tumble or he deliberately
refused to take Merriwell's words as they were intended.

"You'll have to kick him before he knows he's not wanted," Rattleton had
said.

"Thank you for your advice," said Frank, with mild sarcasm--"thank you
exceedingly! Perhaps you are right."

"Oh, I know I am. I don't want to get the king after me, and I don't
believe you care to have him on your trail. He is the most influential
soph in college. Why, his name is on a table down at Morey's."

Ditson looked around as if his last statement had settled the question
of Browning's vast superiority over all sophomores.

Morey's was the favorite resort of the students, and no freshman could
enter there. It was an old frame house, with low-posted rooms, and there
one could drink everything except beer. No beer could be had at Morey's.

Morey's was headquarters for the Society of the Cup. This cup had six
handles and was kept in a locked closet. On the cup was engraved in
large letters the word "Velvet," which is a well-known Yale drink,
composed of champagne and Dublin stout, a drink that is mild and soft,
but has a terrific "kick."

Besides the word "Velvet," a number of students' names were engraved on
the cup, and no one whose name was not there could ask the proprietor to
show the cup.

The marked tables were two round tables on which names of the
frequenters of the place had been cut in the hard wood. One table had
been filled with six hundred and seventy-five names and was suspended
against the wall, where it would revolve, and the other tables were fast
filling up.

Merriwell laughed at Ditson's statement.

"I don't see as it is such a wonderful thing for a soph to get his name
on one of those tables," he said. "If you had said that Browning's name
was on the cup, it would have seemed a matter of some consequence."

"It may be, for all I know. Sophs are not in the habit of telling us
everything. Steer clear of Browning, Merry, old man."

"Thanks again! You have made me so nervous that I thi