Dashing Diamond Dick and Other Classic Dime Novels by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

Rattleton Is Excited

“It wasn’t Merriwell’s fault that the freshies didn’t win,” said Bob Collingwood to Paul Pierson as they were riding back to New Haven on the train that night.

“Not a bit of it,” agreed Pierson. “I was expecting a great deal of Merriwell, but I believe he is a better man than I thought he could be.”

“Then you have arrived at the conclusion that he is fast enough for the regular team?”

“I rather think he is.”

“Will you give him a trial?”

“We may. It is a bad thing for any freshman to get an exalted opinion of himself and his abilities, for it is likely to spoil him. I don’t want to spoil Merriwell——”

“Look here,” interrupted Collingwood, impulsively. “I am inclined to doubt if it is an easy thing to spoil that fellow. He hasn’t put on airs since coming to Yale, has he?”

“No.”

“Instead of that, he has lived rather simply—far more so than most fellows would if they could afford anything better. He has made friends with everybody who appeared to be white,14 no matter whether their parents possessed boodle15 or were poor.”

“That is one secret of Merriwell’s popularity. He hasn’t shown signs of thinking himself too good to be living.”

“Yet I have it straight that he has a fortune in his own right, and he may live as swell as he likes while he is here. What do you think of that?”

“It may be true,” admitted Pierson. “He is an original sort of chap——”

“But they say there isn’t anything small or mean about him,” put in Collingwood, swiftly. “He isn’t living cheap for economy’s sake. You know he doesn’t drink.”

“Yes. I have made many inquiries about his habits.”

“Still they say he opens wine for his friends now and then, drinking ginger ale, or something of that sort, while they are surrounding fizz, for which he settles. And he is liberal in other ways.”

“He is an enigma in some ways.”

“I have heard a wild sort of story about him, but I don’t take much stock in it. It is the invention of some fertile brain.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, a lot of trash about his having traveled all over the world, been captured by pirates and cannibals, fought gorillas and tigers, shot elephants and so forth. Of course that’s all rot.”

“Of course. What does he say about it?”

“Oh, he simply laughs at the stories. If a fellow asks him point blank if they are true he tells him not to let anybody string him. He seems to regard the whole business as a weak sort of joke that some fellow is trying to work.”

“Without doubt that’s what it is, for he’s too young to have had such adventures. Besides that, there’s no fellow modest enough to deny it if he had.”

“Of course there isn’t.”

In this way that point was settled in their minds, for the time, at least.

There was no band to welcome ’Umpty-eight back to New Haven. No crowd of cheering freshmen was at the station, and those who

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