"Well, there is a certain fellow who has not been above playing into the hands of the sophs in the past, and it is natural for me to suspect him. His name is--"
The door opened, and Roland Ditson came in without knocking.
"Hello, fellows!" cried Ditson. "How are yer, Jones! I am surprised to see you here. Is it possible you have let up cramming long enough to make a call? Why, I have even heard that you had your eye on some classical scholarship prize as soon as this. Everybody who knows you says you're a regular hard-working old dig."
"There are fools who know other people's business a great deal better than their own," said Dismal stiffly.
"That's right," nodded Ditson, who made a great effort to be rakish in his appearance, but always appeared rather foxy instead. "But I tell you this matter of burning the midnight oil and grinding is not what it's cracked up to be. It makes a man old before his time, and it doesn't amount to much after he has been all through it. Goodness knows we freshmen have to cram hard enough to get through! I am tired of it already. And then we have to live outside the pale, as it were. When we become sophs we'll be able to give up boarding houses and live in the dormitories. That's what I am anxious for."
"It strikes me that you are very partial to sophs," said Dismal, giving Roll a piercing look.
"They're a rather clever gang of fellows," he said. "Freshmen are very new, as a rule. Of course there are exceptions, and--"
"Oh, I can't tell about that. But supposing I am; by the time I become a soph some of the newness will have worn off."
"I am not particularly impressed with any freshman who seems to think so much of sophomores. You ought to stay with them all the time."
"Oh, I don't know. They have treated me rather well, and I have found the most of them easy people."
"They seem to have found some freshman easy fruit. Somebody has been blowing to them about our crew."
"I know it," was Ditson's surprising confession, "and that's why I dropped in here. I wanted to tell Merriwell about it."
Jones gasped for breath. He was too surprised to speak for some minutes.
Ditson took out a package of cigarettes, offering them first to Harry, who shook his head.