“Well, he’ll have to get those notions out of his head if he wants to stay in college,” airily declared Dan Dorman.  “Now, I came here with the idea of falling into the ways in vogue.  Everything goes with me.  That’s the way to get along.”

“I am not so sure of that,” Merriwell returned.  “A man must have some individuality.  If you do everything everybody wants you to, it won’t be long before they’ll not want you to do anything.”

“Oh, well, what’s the use to be always hanging off and getting yourself disliked?”

“One extreme is as bad as the other.  Now, I make allowances for Diamond, and I am not inclined to believe him such a bad fellow.”

Harry Rattleton flung a book across the room.

“Oh, you give me the flubdubs!” he exploded.  “Why, that fellow hates you, and he means to do you some time.  Still you are soft enough to say he’s not such a bad fellow!  It’s disgusting!”

“Time will tell,” smiled Frank.  “All of you fellows must admit that he has sand.”

“Oh, a kind of bulldog stick-to-it-iveness,” murmured Stover.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Bandy Robinson; “now that Diamond has not blowed, he’s going to be backed by some of the leading sophs.”

“Eh?  What makes you think so?”

“Oh, I’ve got it straight.  Browning has been to see him.”

“No!  Why, Browning is king of the sophs!”

“And he is jealous of Merriwell.”

“Jealous?”

“Sure.  He says Merry is altogether too ‘soon’ for a fresh, and he must be taken down.  I tell you I’ve got it straight.  He’ll put up some kind of a game to enable Diamond to get square.”

“Well, this is rather interesting,” confessed Frank, showing that he was aroused.  “I’ll have to look out for Mr. Browning.”

“He’s a hard fellow to go against,” solemnly said Dismal Jones.  “He’s a Le Boule man, and they say he may take his choice of the other big societies next year.”

“Oh, what’s that amount to?”

“It amounts to something here; but then he’s a fighter, and he is authority on fighters and fighting.”

“He is too fat to fight.”

“They say he can train down in a week.  He was the greatest freshman half-back ever known at Yale.”

“Half-back—­Browning a half-back!  Oh, say, that fellow couldn’t play football!”

“Not a great deal now, perhaps, but he could last year.  He’d be on the regular team now, but his father swore to take him out of college if he didn’t stop it.  You see, Browning is not entirely to blame for his laziness.  He inherits it from his father, and the old man will not allow him to lead in athletics, so whatever he does must be done secretly.”

Frank was interested.  He wondered how a fellow like Bruce Browning could come to be know as “king of the sophomores,” unless such a title was applied to him in derision.  Now he began to understand that Browning was something more than the lazy mischief planner that he had seemed.