Frank could not repress a smile.
"You're the same old Hodge," he said. "You've got to get over it, my boy. You ought to be able to hold your head just as high as this Badger."
"But I'm not. He knocked me out! I can't forget that! It's been a sore spot ever since, and it is sorer now than ever. It's all right for you to talk about holding up your head, for you did him up. With me it is different."
Frank could not help sympathizing with Bart, for he understood the proud, sensitive spirit of his friend; and still, if there was to be a fight, bruiser fashion, he wished the blame to rest entirely with the Kansan.
"I think he'll give you chance enough in time. It's my opinion that he can't keep still long, for he is a natural braggart. It hurts him to keep still."
"Well, Merriwell, I'd do almost anything for you, and so I'll wait; but I'm impatient."
"We'll keep up the practice all the time."
Thus it went on, and Hodge grew more and more skillful under Frank's teaching.
But now a queer thing happened. It became known that Merriwell and Hodge were practicing boxing in Frank's room, and the story got out that Hodge had knocked Frank down. That set everybody wondering, and it produced discussions. Hodge-why, how could he do such a thing? Badger had whipped him, and Badger had proved easy fruit for Merriwell.
The fence took it up. Football was over, and interest in the baseball team of the coming season was not fully aroused. The men had to have something to talk about.
"It's a fake yarn," declared Bell Halliday. "Hodge isn't built right to do it."
"Who invented the story?" asked Puss Parker, in derision. "He ought to be shot!"
"There were witnesses," asserted Bob Brewster.
"Name one," commanded Phil Porter.
"Bink Stubbs," said somebody.
Then there was a shout of scorn.
"Did it come from him?" asked several.
"It did."
"Then it's a canard."
"Somebody ought to wring Stubbs' neck!" exclaimed Pink Pooler.
"I'd like to see the man who can do it!" piped Stubbs himself, appearing on the scene.
Then he was seized by a score of hands and dragged into the midst of the throng.
"Don't tear the clothes off a fellow!" he cried. "I didn't say I'd like to see you all do it; I said one man. Put one man up against me, and I'll lick him if he catches me before I get away!"
"Look here, you little prevaricator," said Bob Brewster, confronting the little chap threateningly, "What's this tale you've been telling about Merriwell and Hodge?"
"Dunno. What is it?"
"You said Hodge knocked Merriwell down when they were boxing in Merriwell's room.
"Yep."
"You know that's rot."
"You go to-down below! Its straight goods. I saw it."
"Alone?"
"No."
"Who else?"
"Browning, Rattleton, Diamond, Jones -we all saw it. Opened the door and walked in just as Hodge dropped Merriwell."
"Alas," said Jones, as he slowly walked into their midst, "he speaks the sad, sad truth."
Their he corroborated Stubbs' story, whereupon there was wonder and amazement to no small extent. It caused the tongues of the gossips to wag all the more freely, and Bart Hodge was looked upon with added interest and respect.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW IT CAME ABOUT.
Coming along the corridor Frank heard some one say:
"It's true. Merriwell hath both tho the girlth on the twing. He hath made love to them both, and they are all bwoke up over the cad. They thay he's a wegular devil the with the girlth, and he'll fool Mith Burrage and Mith Bellwood, jutht the thame ath he hath the otherth."
Then Merry had Lew Veazie by the collar, having caught him in the midst of set of college gossips, who were listening to his stuff, ready to spread it.
"You miserable little wretch!" exclaimed Merry, his eyes flashing. "I'll teach you to talk about ladies your dirty tongue is not fit to mention!"
Then he whipped Veazie over his knee, face downward, and proceeded to give him a good sound spanking.
Lew kicked and squawked:
"Help, fellowth!" he cried. "Don't let the big brute murder me! Take him off!"
But those fellows had no heart to tackle Frank Merriwell, and they slunk away in a hurry, leaving Veazie to his fate.
Frank did the job to the queen's taste, and Veazie bellowed lustily.
"Oh-oh dear!" he cried. "Don't-pleathe don't! You are hurting- oh! ow! I beg your pawdon! I-ow! ow!"
He sobbed and choked.
"There," said Frank, as he stood the caddish little wretch on his feet, "that's just a taste of what you really deserve, and it's a warning, of what you'll get if I ever hear you mention those young ladies again! You have told your dirty stories about me till you have reached the limit, along with the rest of your set. Go tell them what has happened to you, and tell them what has happened to you, and tell them I'll serve them one and all the same if they give me reason."
Then Frank let him go.
Of course it was known in short order that Merriwell had spanked Veazie, and it began to be evident that Frank had tired of ignoring the malicious foes who sought to injure him by their gossiping tales.
Hodge was rejoiced when he heard of it.
"Merriwell has awakened," he said, "and there is bound to be something doing now, when he gets started, he clears the atmosphere for a while."
Chickering's crowd, to whom Veazie belonged, was very indignant. They talked it over in Chickering's room, amid the perfume of musk and the odor of cigarettes.
"He had to pick out the smallest man he could find," said Tilton Hull, his col- lar holding his chin high in the air, as usual.
"It's a good thing he didn't try it on me!" grated Gene Skelding, his vest unbuttoned to show the broad expanse of his new pink shirt.
"What would you have done, Skeld?" asked Julian Ives, patting his bang down on his forehead.
"I'd-I'd killed him!" declared Gene, as savagely as possible.
"I didn't have anything to kill him with," said Veazie.
"Why didn't you get out your knife and cut him?" asked Skelding.
"I didn't have anything but a little penknife, you know."
"Poor Merriwell!" said Chickering. "He is just a low, common brute. I'm sorry for him,"
"Rot!" said Ollie Lord. "Poor Lew! Think of being spanked! It's awful!"
"It ith awful," sighed Veazie, snuggling up to Lord and putting an arm round him. "The fellow's hand hurt Wretched, I never wath hurt tho bad before."
"What are we going to do about it?" solemnly asked Hull. "It's an outrage we can't overlook."
"What can we do?" asked Ives. "Lay for him-sandbag