“Why not?”

“If one of dem freshies got injuries in dis place so bad it might git out, an’ dat would fix me.”

“I don’t intend to use it on him unless I have to.  Go ahead and explain your trick.  If it isn’t straight I want my money back.”

“Dere won’t be any money back, fer der trick is all right, all right.  Now stan’ up here an’ I’ll show yer how it’s did.”

Kelley then showed Bruce how to bring the edge of his open hand down on the upper side of an enemy’s wrist just back of the joint.

“Yer wants ter snap it like dis,” Buster explained, illustrating with a sharp, rebounding motion.  “If yer strikes him right dere wid der cushion meat on der lower edge of yer hand an’ snaps yer hand erway like dis, it’s dead sure ter break der bone.  Jes’ try it on yer own wrist, but be careful not ter try it too hard.”

Bruce did as directed, and he found that he hurt himself severely, although he struck a very light blow.

“Dat’s ter trick,” said Kelley, “an’ it’s a dandy.  Don’t yer ever use it ’less yer dead sure yer wants ter break der odder feller’s wrist.”

Then the professor called up a colored boy, who rubbed Bruce down, and the king of the sophomores finally departed.

As he walked back toward his room in the dusk of early evening, Browning began to feel sorry that he had learned the trick at all.

“It would be a dirty game to play on Merriwell,” he muttered, “but now that I know it, I may get mad and do it in a huff, especially if I see Merriwell is getting the best of me.”

The more Browning thought the matter over the greater became his regret that he had learned the trick of breaking an opponent’s wrist.  For all that he had a strong feeling against Merriwell, he could see that the leader of the freshmen was square and manly, and he did not believe Frank would take an unfair advantage of a foe.

Bruce became quite unlike his old jovial self.  He was strangely downcast and moody, and he saw that he was fast losing prestige with those who had once regarded him as their leader.

Hartwick, Browning’s roommate, was more bitter against Merriwell.

“The confounded upstart!” he would growl.  “Think of his coming here and carrying things on with such a high hand!  When we were freshmen the sophomores had everything their own way.  They Lambda Chied us till they became sick of it, and all our attempts to get even proved failures.  Now the freshmen who are following the lead of this fellow Merriwell seem to think that they are cocks of the walk.  I tell you what it is, Bruce, you must do that fellow, and you must do him so he will stay done.”

“Oh, I don’t believe he is such a bad fellow at heart, It wouldn’t be right to injure him permanently.”

“Wouldn’t it?  Give me the chance and see if I don’t fix him.”

Hartwick began to regard his roommate with disdain.