LITMIR.BIZ

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and the name of the one responsible for the appearance of the room was placed on the orderly board, hung to the front of the alcove partition.

      Back of the door was another board, on which each was required to post his hours of recitation, and to account for his absence from the room at any inspection.

      In fact, a rigid effort was made at Fardale to imitate in every possible way the regulations and requirements enforced at West Point, and it was the boast that the school was, in almost every particular, identical with our great Military Academy.

      Of course, it was impossible to enforce the rules as rigidly as they are at the Point, for the cadets at Fardale were, as a class, far younger, and the disgrace of expulsion or failure in any way was not to be compared with that attending unfortunates at the school where youths are graduated into actual service as officers of the United States army.

      Many of the cadets at Fardale had been sent there by parents who could not handle them at home, and who had hoped the discipline they would receive at a military school would serve to tone down their wildness. Thus it will be seen that many harum-scarum fellows got into the school, and that they could not readily be compelled to conform to the rules and requirements.

      For all that Frank Merriwell was a jolly, fun-loving fellow, he was naturally orderly and neat, so that it seemed very little effort for him to do his part in keeping the room in order.

      On the other hand, Bartley Hodge was naturally careless, and he had a persistent way of displacing things that annoyed Frank, although the latter said little about it at first.

      Whenever the inspecting officer found anything wrong about the room, he simply glanced at the orderly board, and down went the demerit against the lad whose name was posted there. It made no difference who had left a chair out of place, hung a coat where it should not be, or failed to invert the washbowl, the room orderly had to assume the responsibility.

      Now, it was the last thing in the world that Hodge could wish to injure Merriwell, but three times in Frank's first week as room orderly he was reported for things he could not help, and for which Bart was entirely responsible.

      Merriwell had risen to the first section in recitation at the very start, while Hodge, who had been placed in the third, was soon relegated to the second.

      Frank was trying to curb his almost unbounded inclination for mischief, and he was studying assiduously.

      On the other hand, while Hodge did not seem at all mischievous by nature, he detested study, and he was inclined to spend the time when he should have been "digging," in reading some story, or in idly yawning and wishing the time away.

      One day, after having taken his third demerit on his roommate's account, the inspector having detected tobacco smoke in the room, Frank said:

      "Why don't you swear off on cigarettes, Bart? They don't do a fellow any good, and they are pretty sure to get him into trouble here at the academy."

      Hodge was in anything but a pleasant frame of mind, and he instantly retorted:

      "I know what you mean. You are orderly, and I ought to have spoken up and told the inspector I had been smoking. I didn't know what it was he put down, but I'll go and confess my crime now."

      He sprang up petulantly, but Frank's hand dropped on his arm, and Merriwell quietly said:

      "Don't go off angry, old man. You know I don't want you to do anything of the sort. I will take my medicine when I am orderly, and I know you will do the same when it comes your turn."

      "Well, I didn't know——" began Bart, in a somewhat sulky manner.

      "You ought to know pretty well by this time. I am not much given to kicking or growling, but I do want to have a sober talk with you, and I hope you will not fire up at anything I say."

      "All right; go ahead," said Hodge, throwing himself wearily into a chair, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. "I'll listen to your sermon."

      "It isn't to be a sermon. You should know I am not the kind of a fellow to preach."

      "That's so. Don't mind me. Drive ahead."

      "First, I want to ask how it is you happened to let yourself be put back in recitations?"

      "Oh, Old Gunn just put me back—that's all."

      "But you are fully as good a scholar as I am, and you could have gone ahead into the first section if you had braced up."

      "Perhaps so."

      "I know it. You do not study."

      "What's the use of boning all the time! I wasn't cut out for it."

      "That's the only way to get ahead here."

      "I don't care much about getting ahead. All I want is to pull through and graduate. Then I can go to college if I wish. These fellows who get the idea that they must dig, dig, dig here, just as they say they do at West Point, give me a pain. What is there to dig for? We're not working for commissions in the army."

      "From your point of view, you put up a very good argument," admitted Frank; "but there's another side. It surely must be some satisfaction to graduate well up in your class, if not at the head. And then, the more a fellow learns here, the easier he will find the work after entering college."

      "Work? Pshaw! There are not many fellows in colleges who are compelled to bone. I hate work! I thought you were the kind of a fellow who liked a little fun?"

      "Well, you know I am. Haven't I always been in for sport?"

      "But you're getting to be a regular plodder. You don't do a thing lately to keep your blood circulating."

      "I am afraid you do too much that is contrary to rules, old man. For instance, where is it that you go so often nights, and stay till near morning?"

      "I go out for a little sport," replied Bart, with a grim smile.

      CHAPTER II.

       A GHASTLY SUBJECT.

       Table of Contents

      "But you know the consequences if you are caught," said Frank, warningly.

      "Of course I do," nodded Bart, "but you must acknowledge there is not much danger that I shall be caught, as long as I make up a good dummy to leave in my place on the bed."

      "Still, you may be."

      "That's right, and there's where part of the sport comes in, as you ought to know, for you are quite a fellow to take chances yourself, Merriwell."

      "That's right," admitted Frank. "It's in my blood, and I can't help it. Anything with a spice of risk or danger attracts and fascinates me."

      "You are not in the habit of hesitating or being easily scared when there is some sport in the wind."

      Frank smiled.

      "I never have been," he admitted. "I have taken altogether too many risks in the past. A fellow has to sober down and straighten up if he means to do anything or be anything."

      Bart made an impatient gesture.

      "Any one would think you were a reformed toper, to hear you talk," he said, with a trace of a sneer.

      "Not if they knew me," said Frank, quietly. "Whatever my faults may be, I never had any inclination to drink. I have had fellows tell me they did so for fun, but I have never been able to see the fun in it, and it surely is injurious and dangerous. I don't believe many young fellows like the taste of liquor. I don't. They drink it 'for fun,' and they keep on drinking it 'for fun' till a habit is formed, and they become drunkards. Now, I can find plenty of fun of a sort that will not harm me, or bring——"

      "I thought you weren't going to preach," interrupted the dark-haired boy, impatiently. "Let me give you a text: 'Thou shalt not put an enemy into thy mouth to steal away thy brain,' or something of the sort. Now, go ahead and

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