“Drop it!”

Crash!

The command had come like a pistol-shot. The glass fell instantly, smashing on the polished bar, over which flowed the amber-hued liquid.

“Merriwell?”

Dick Starbright, pale as snow, turned as he gasped the name.

“Starbright!”

There was a world of surprise and reproach in Frank’s voice.

Dick Starbright, standing at the bar of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, had lifted the glass of whisky to his lips when Frank stepped into the room and uttered the sharp command. The big Yale freshman dropped his glass as if it had suddenly burned his fingers.

Frank came forward, his eyes fastened steadily on Dick, who leaned against the bar weakly, his pallor giving place to a flush of shame.

“This is a surprise,” said Merry.

“Rather!” choked Dick.

“I thought you were in New Haven.”

“I’m not.”

“That is plain. But what are you doing here?”

“I was on the point of taking a drink,” said Starbright, endeavoring to regain his composure, “when the sound of your voice caused me to let the glass slip from my fingers. Bartender, give me another glass. I’ll pay for the one I broke.”

The man behind the bar, who had been picking up the pieces of glass and wiping the liquid from the polished wood, immediately sat out another glass and the bottle of whisky.

“What’s yours, sir?” he asked, looking at Merriwell.

But Frank simply shook his head, standing quite still and watching Dick Starbright, who, with a show of recklessness, proceeded to pour another glass of whisky. But Dick’s hand was not quite steady, and there was a look of shame on his face. However, having been detected in the act, it was plain that he meant to brazen it out.

“I know it’s useless to ask you to join me,” he said to Frank, but without permitting his eyes to meet the pair that were regarding him steadily with a gaze of mingled sorrow and reproach.

“What has happened to my friends?” thought Frank. “Here’s Starbright following in Diamond’s footsteps. I caught Jack just in time to pull him up with a round turn, and now I’ve got another job on my hands.”

With a pretense of defiant carelessness, the big Andover man lifted the glass. Frank’s hand fell on his arm.

“Wait a minute, Dick,” he urged gently. “How many drinks have you taken before this?”

“Not any,” was the answer that gave Merry a sensation of great relief, for he knew that one drink was enough to set the fire raging in Starbright’s veins and make him mad for more.

“That being the case,” said Frank, in a quiet tone, “let’s talk this matter over a little before you take the first one.”

“It’s no use, Merriwell,” asserted the big, blond freshman. “I know what you mean to say, but I’ve got to take this drink.”

Now he gave Frank a defiant look, but his eyes drooped almost instantly.

“You must be in a bad way if you feel like that,” said Merry, still in that calm, unagitated manner.

“The devil is in me!” confessed Starbright. “He is calling for whisky, and I’m going to give him enough to drown him. Ha, ha, ha!”

Merriwell did not remember ever having seen Dick in such a reckless and desperate mood. There was a wild light in the eyes of the freshman, and his air was that of one who cares not a snap what may happen, and would not turn one step out of his path to avoid meeting death itself.

Frank knew there was a cause for all this. He knew something had brought Starbright down here to New York and thrown him into this exceedingly reckless mood, and he wished to discover without delay what that something could be.

“It will take a lot of whisky to drown the devil,” said Frank. “I don’t think there is enough distilled in the world to accomplish that feat. Men have been trying to drown the old fellow in whisky ever since the secret of manufacturing the stuff was first learned, and he has thrived on it and grown stronger every year. In fact, the devil likes whisky just as a child likes milk. To tell the truth, I believe whisky was an invention of the devil, to begin with, and I know that more than anything else it has served him as a snare for the unwary feet of foolish human beings who fancy they can master it. But I’m not here to deliver a temperance lecture, Starbright. I happened to look into this place in search of Diamond, and I saw you. My boy, let me pay for that stuff, but do not drink it now. Come up to my room, and we’ll have a little talk. After that is over, if you are determined to drink, I’ll not oppose you.”

But Dick shook his head.

“I know all that you would say, Merry,” he declared. “It’s all true. The stuff is my one temptation and my curse. If I take this drink, I may go straight to the dogs, but what of that! It will help me to forget that I have been fooled by a pair of black eyes, and that I betrayed the best friend a chap ever had. Down it goes!”

Frank would not release the arm of the reckless freshman.

“Not yet,” he said firmly. “You shall not take that stuff till I know why you are so determined to drink it.”

“Because I am a fool and a traitor!”

“We’re all fools in one way or another, but traitors we are not.”

“You know I’m a sneak, Frank Merriwell!” hoarsely said Dick. “I don’t see how you can still entertain one friendly feeling toward me. If I received what I deserve at your hands, they’d take me away from here in an ambulance!”

“If you had not told me that no liquor had passed your lips, I should think you jagged already,” asserted Frank. “You are talking like a few mixed drinks.”

“I’m talking just what I think. My eyes are open at last.”

“Well, if getting your eyes open has this effect on you, it will be a good idea to shut them again.”

“Not much! I have been fooled twice, and it’s going to be a long time before I’m deceived again in the same way. Let me go, Frank. I want this drink, and I must have it!”

Frank knew that Dick would barely swallow the first drink when he would want another. Then another, and another would follow, till the freshman was howling drunk.

Drink had been the curse that finally conquered old Captain Starbright, Dick’s father, and it seemed that the craving for liquor had been inherited by the son. But Dick fought against the desire, and fancied he had overcome it until the time when his enemies at college succeeded in drugging him and getting him started on a carousal just before a football-game.

Frank Merriwell had found Starbright in Rupert Chickering’s room and rescued him, locking him up and watching over him while he grew sober, though the “doped” lad had raved and prayed and begged for whisky. From that time Dick had found it more difficult to keep in restraint his desire for drink, but never until Merriwell discovered him at the bar of the Fifth Avenue Hotel had he yielded to the tempter.

Under ordinary circumstances, the mere sound of Merriwell’s voice had been quite enough to cause Starbright to resist temptation, but now a remarkable change had come over him, and he seemed determined to drink even though it was right before Frank’s eyes, and in defiance of his entreaties.

Merriwell knew from this that the case was desperate, but he was determined to keep the freshman from accomplishing his purpose.

The barkeeper looked on in evident displeasure at Frank’s interference.

“Why don’t you let him alone, young fellow?” he growled, glaring at Merry. “He’s old enough to know his own business.”

Frank turned his eyes and gave the barkeeper a single steady look, as he grimly said:

“And you are old enough to mind your own business. He is my friend.”

The barkeeper gurgled in his throat, plainly longing to come over the bar and attack Merry, yet fearing to do so lest he lose his position.

Frank again turned to Dick.

“My boy, for your own sake, you can’t afford to touch that stuff.”

“Bah!” laughed Starbright. “What do I care about myself!”

“Your career at college——”

“Is liable to come to an end mighty soon.”

“You should think of your friends.”

“A man who will treat his best friend the way I treated you can’t be appealed to in that way,” said Starbright almost sullenly.

“But your mother, Dick—surely she has seen sorrow enough. For her sake!”

The freshman turned pale again, and his hand shook. He put the glass of whisky down.

“I won’t drink it—now,” he huskily declared, as he flung some money on the bar and turned away. “I tried not to think of her. I must get out of here, Merriwell!”

Frank had conquered, and he walked from the room with his arm passed through that of the big Andover man. He took Starbright up to his room. Diamond was not there, and thus they found themselves alone.

“Sit down,” Frank invited, but Dick began to pace the floor like a wild beast in a cage. His eyes were gleaming and the expression on his face was one Frank had never seen there before.

“I can’t sit down!” he said. “I must do something. I feel like smashing something!”

“If you feel that way now, how would you have felt after getting a few drinks inside you?”

“I’d been pretty sure to raise Cain. It’s likely I’d brought up in a police-station.”

“You must tell me what it’s all about,” said Merry. “You know I can be trusted, for I am your friend.”

The big, handsome freshman whirled about in the middle of the room, flinging out his hand in a gesture of remonstrance.

“There is no reason why you should be my friend!” he declared. “You did everything you could for me when I first came to Yale. Even though I was a mere freshman and you so far above me, you showed me such kindness that they came to call me your protÉgÉ. I was proud of it, and I felt that you were the finest fellow in the whole world. I wrote to my mother and brother telling them all about you, and what you had done for me. I swore I was willing to serve you, even to the cost of my life. I believed it then, but after that, fooled, enchanted, fascinated, and maddened by a pair of black eyes, I played the traitor to you! Now, why should you remain my friend? I don’t know of a reason!”

Frank walked up to Dick, placing his hands on the freshman’s shoulders and gazing straight into his blue, eyes.

“My dear boy,” he said, “some things happen in this world despite ourselves. I know what you mean now, but perhaps you fancy you did me a greater wrong than was truly the case.”

“No; I did not do you a wrong!” was Dick’s surprising statement. “I believe I did you a good turn; but, at the same time, it was a piece of unfairness and treachery, for I knew you had cared for Inza Burrage—I knew I had no right to come between you and her.”

“You are strangely contradictory, Starbright. If you did not do me a wrong, if what you did was a good thing for me, why should I not remain your friend? Why should I feel resentment toward you?”

“Because you do not know—yet. I know, for I have seen with my own eyes. Oh, she is the handsomest girl in all the world, Merriwell, but she is just as false and fickle as she is handsome!”

Frank looked graver than ever.

“You are excited and hasty, else you would not make such a charge against her, Starbright!” he declared.

“Excited I may be, but I am not hasty. I have a reason, Merriwell, you may be sure of that. I don’t wish to get rid of any of the blame, but if she were not fickle, why did she so readily turn from you to me?”

“Because she felt certain that between us there could never be a tie stronger than mere friendship.”

“Why did she feel certain of that? Merriwell, are you saying this just to make me feel less like a sneak?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure?” asked Dick, with great eagerness. “It would be like you to treat a fellow generous in that way. How do you know Inza felt as you say?”

“She had told me so!”

“When?”

“Almost two years ago.”

Starbright seemed more surprised than ever.

“I can hardly believe it! Why, all the fellows thought her struck on you! You seemed to be the only one she cared for.”

“We were the best of friends, my boy; but it is the truth that Inza herself told me we could never be anything but friends. I do not say this to soothe your feelings, but because I do not wish you to regard yourself or Inza in a wrong light. She had a right to like you, Dick, and I don’t wonder that she did. You are——”

The freshman stopped Merry with a savage gesture.

“Don’t talk that way!” he cried. “Wait till you know everything! When and where was it that she told you this?”

“It was one year ago last summer, on the veranda of the little hotel in the town of Maplewood, where I was managing a baseball-team. The season had closed, and the time of separation had come. Inza had been spending a few weeks in Maplewood. On the evening before the final game we were together on the veranda, and, during the course of our talk, she frankly and plainly told me that she had outgrown her first foolish infatuation for me, and that in the future we were to be nothing more than the best of friends.”

Dick Starbright drew a deep breath, and then stepped back and dropped heavily on a chair.

“You—you’re sure you are not saying this just to—to make me feel less like a—like a miserable scoundrel?” he begged huskily.

“Surely not. Frank Merriwell is not in the habit of lying outright, even for the sake of his friends. So you see your supposed treachery toward me was nothing of the sort. More than that, you see Inza had a right to prefer you, and it was none of my business.”

“I—I wondered that you did not feel like shooting me,” said Dick, trying to force a smile, but making a sorry failure of it. “Now I understand.”

“Is it thoughts like these that have made you reckless and driven you to the verge of drink, my boy?”

Starbright shook his head.

“They were not all,” he asserted. “There is another reason. I will confess that I was tortured with jealousy after leaving you at the Grand Central and starting for New Haven. I knew, or I thought I knew, that you were going back to see Inza. You had shipped me off, to get rid of me, so you could have a clear field. I told myself that, and it made me furious at first. I continued to be tortured by such thoughts after reaching college. I could not study, sleep, train, or do anything. I was in a frightful condition. Worse than everything was the thought that you were with Inza and I had no right to interfere. I could not endure it, and I soon decided to come back here and set myself right with you. I saw it was the only thing that would enable me to rest with an easy conscience. That is what brought me to New York, and now you know why I am here.”

Starbright seemed relieved.

“My dear boy,” laughed Frank sympathetically, “you have been giving yourself no end of unnecessary worry and trouble. But now you know it was all right.”

“Perhaps it would have been better if I had remained in New Haven,” said Dick, still looking gloomy, greatly to Frank’s wonderment. “Then I should not have learned the truth concerning her, even though I continued to think myself a scoundrel.”

“What do you mean?” asked Merry, puzzled by the freshman’s words and manner.

“I don’t like to tell you, Merriwell. I’m not going to tell you. But I’m done with her! She can’t play fast and loose with me! I’m glad you stopped me from taking that drink, for I’d been sure to make a fool of myself, but I am done with Miss Burrage forever!”

He had risen, and now he was pacing the floor again, his blue eyes flashing and his fair face pale with the emotion that possessed him.

“Are you daffy, Starbright?” exclaimed Merriwell, beginning to lose patience. “You have fancied there was a reason why you should not care for Inza; and now, when you find there is no such reason, you declare you will have nothing more to do with her.”

“But there is a reason, Merriwell! Don’t let’s talk of it. It makes my blood boil!”

Frank caught hold of his companion and brought him to a halt.

“Look here,” he said sternly; “you’ll have to talk of it, for I am going to know what you mean. I believe Inza thinks a great deal of you, and I do not believe you have a right to speak of her in such a manner.”

Merry was astounded when the big freshman whirled on him like a raging lion.

“You don’t know!” burst from Dick’s lips. “You have seen nothing but her fine qualities. You have not observed the other side of her character. She’s a flirt! She takes delight in deceiving men! I believe she has deceived you, just as she did me! Oh, yes! she’s handsome, but she’s fickle. I know what I’m talking about, Merriwell! Don’t try to stop me! I know you’ll say I’m crazy, but I’m not! I have seen something with my own eyes that settles everything between that girl and myself! I am done with her, Frank Merriwell—done with her forever!”

Then Frank gripped the gigantic Andover man, and, despite Starbright’s remarkable strength, quickly sat him down on a chair.

“See here!” exploded Frank, a look in his eyes that the other had never seen there before, “do you know, man, that you have stepped over the limit? How dare you talk to me in such a way of Inza Burrage? I have known her since she was a girl in short dresses, and she is as pure as the stars. Man, you cannot speak of her thus before me! You are my friend—at least, you have been. I will not listen to such words from the lips of anybody. She is not treacherous, and she does not take delight in deceiving men.”

Dick Starbright was appalled by the terrible earnestness of Frank Merriwell. He sat there, staring up at Merry in wonderment, while in his heart he was saying:

“You told me you did not care for her, but you love her—you love her! I see it now! You may not know it, Merriwell, but you love her!”

He gave himself a slight shake, as if flinging off a spell.

“All right,” he said huskily. “I am willing that you should think so.”

But his manner of saying this made Frank more furious than ever. His face hardened and his grip on Starbright’s shoulders was like iron.

“By Heaven!” he said harshly; “you shall think so! You shall say so with your own lips! You shall take back everything you have thought and said of her that was not in praise of her. I swear it!”

It is possible that for a single moment Starbright thought of opposing Merriwell with physical force, but the inclination passed swiftly, and he sat there in silence, a look of defiance on his almost boyish face.

“Go ahead!” he muttered. “I know what I’ve seen!”

“Now you must tell me what you mean by that, man. There can be nothing held in reserve now, Starbright—tell everything! It is the only way.”

“All right; but I did not mean to tell—you force it from me.”

“But be careful!” warned Merry. “I shall investigate. Make no charge you cannot back up.”

“It’s not much of a story. When I landed at the Grand Central, I saw Inza there. She did not see me. She was there to meet some one. The one she met was a handsome young man about your age, Merriwell. She ran to him with outstretched hands, and he caught her in his arms. I stood transfixed, and I heard her call him ‘dear Walter!’ Oh, I heard it, Merriwell! He kissed her, and she kissed him again and again! It was love she showed in her face and eyes and in her voice. It was love in her kisses! I was turned to stone when I saw it. I watched them leave the station, enter a cab, and depart. Then I awoke. But I was half-mad, and a little while after that you found me at the bar of this hotel.”