“Dut the whickens――I mean what the dickens are you doing?” squawked this individual.
“Refuse me,” snickered Ready. “I did not do it, I assure you. Is Mr. Frank Merriwell present?”
But as he said the word Frank moved suddenly to one side, and thus he avoided the blow which Ready aimed at him. Jack’s fist struck against something hard, and his knuckles were skinned.
“Merriwell,” he said, “you are awfully hard. I’d like to pound you awhile with a club, just to see if I could not mellow you up a bit.”
“Refuse me!” said Merry, catching up Ready’s favorite expression. “I am afraid I’d not enjoy it. How did you like your trip on the back of a fiery Arab steed?”
“I’m thinking you may fancy it went too far.”
“In one direction, yes. You are a very clever person, Mr. Merriwell, but there is such a thing as being too clever.”
“On my word of honor. What do you think you are doing?”
“Giving you a little drive for your health.”
“My health is very good, thank you. You are exerting yourself without cause.”
“Oh, I think not! You are such a jolly fresh freshman that I couldn’t resist the temptation, don’t you know.”
“Jolly fresh! I like that――I don’t think! I demand, sir, to know your reason for those words!”
“You have proved your exceeding freshness since the football-game. Nobody ever heard of you before that game. Since then you have been strutting about the campus like a peacock with its tail spread. You have been crowing over yourself till it has become a trifle wearisome, but, even at that, I should not have troubled you had you kept silent about me.”
“Now we are getting at facts――hard, cold, stony facts,” said Jack. “Proceed.”
“I do not in the least mind anything you may have said about the game,” declared Frank; “but when you vauntingly declared that you’d love to have me back in the sophomore class so that you could make it interesting for me, I was touched.”
“Not by me,” declared Ready quickly. “I had good money staked that Brown would not score, and I shall not need to touch anybody for another week.”
“I was touched,” Merry repeated, “and I resolved to teach you a little lesson free of charge. You need it. You are altogether too Ready――with your mouth. You must learn to keep it closed. A man with his mouth always open is liable to get bugs in his throat.”