Merry flung open the door.

“Good-day, sir.”

Bloodgood stepped out, turned round, laughed, and then walked away.

“Hang it, Merriwell!” grated Diamond, as Frank closed the door; “why didn’t you let me kick him out onto his neck!”

CHAPTER IV.

Who is Bloodgood?

Diamond was thoroughly angry.  So was Rattleton.  In his excitement, Harry said something that caused Frank to turn quickly, and observe: 

“Don’t use that kind of language, old man, no matter what the provocation.  Vulgarity is even lower than profanity.”

Harry’s face flushed, and he looked intensely ashamed of himself.

“I peg your bardon—­I mean I beg your pardon!” he spluttered.  “It slipped out.  You know I don’t say anything like that often.”

“I know it,” nodded Frank, “and that’s why it sounded all the worse.  I don’t know that I ever heard you use such a word before.”

Harry did not resent Frank’s reproof, for he knew Frank was right, and he was ashamed.

Every young man who stoops to vulgarity should be ashamed.  Profanity is coarse and degrading; vulgarity is positively low and filthy.  The youth who is careful to keep his clothes and his body clean should be careful to keep his mouth clean.  Let nothing go into it or come out of it that is in any way lowering.

Did you ever hear a loafer on a corner using profane and obscene language?  I’ll warrant most of you have, and I’ll warrant that you were thoroughly disgusted.  You looked on the fellow as low, coarse, cheap, unfit to associate with respectable persons.  The next time you use a word that you should be ashamed to have your mother or sister hear just think that you are following the example of that loafer.  You are lowering yourself in the eyes of somebody, even though you may not think so at the time.  Perhaps one of your companions may be a person who uses such language freely, and yet he has never before heard it from you.  He laughs, he calls you a jolly good fellow to your face; but he thinks to himself that you are no better than anybody else, and behind your back he tells somebody what he thinks.  He is glad of the opportunity to show that you are no better than he is.  Never tell a vulgar story.  Better never listen to one, unless your position is such that you cannot escape without making yourself appear a positive cad.  If you have to listen to such a story, forget it as soon as possible.  Above all things, do not try to remember it.

Some young men boast of the stories they know.  And all their stories are of the “shady” sort.  It is better to know no stories than to know that kind.  It is better not to be called a good fellow than to win a reputation by always having a new story of the low sort ready on your tongue.

There are other and better ways of winning a reputation as a good fellow.  There are stories which are genuinely humorous and funny which are also clean.  No matter how much of a laugh he may raise, any self-respecting person feels that he has lowered himself by telling a vulgar story.  It is not so if he has told a clean story.  He is satisfied with the laughter he has caused and with himself.