“Well, my good fellow, have I kept you waiting long?” demanded Jordan, just the second after he had stepped past Dick without seeing the latter.

“You could a jumped faster,” growled the stranger.  “With all I know against you, Jordan, it will pay you to nurse my good feeling a little harder.”

“Why, what’s the matter with you now?” demanded Jordan more seriously.

Somehow, Dick could not pull himself away just then.

“Have you brought me some of that money you owe me?” demanded the stranger gruffly.

“Now, you know I can’t, before graduation day,” pleaded Jordan whiningly.

“And I know that, when graduation day comes, you’ll tell me that every dollar you had in the world had to go into uniforms,” snapped the stranger.  “I’ll tell you what I do know about you, Jordan, my boy.  I know that if you don’t find the money, turn it over and get back my note, you’ll never graduate!  Cadets can’t borrow money on their notes; it’s against the regulations.  If it was known that you had borrowed five hundred dollars of me already, and that you were defaulting on principal and interest, too-----”

“It wasn’t five hundred,” broke in Jordan nervously.  “It was just two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“The note says five hundred,” retorted the stranger tersely, with a shrug of his shoulders.  And there’s interest on it, too.  And you haven’t paid a dollar.  You told me you could get the money from home.”

“I—–­I thought I could, at that,” stammered Cadet Jordan.   “But
I wrote my father, and he said he was near bankruptcy-----”

“Near bankruptcy?” almost screamed the stranger.  “You young swindler.  You told me your father was a wealthy man!”

“Sh!” begged Jordan tremulously.  “Not so loud!  Some one will hear you.”

“I don’t care who hears me,” retorted the stranger in an ugly tone.  “You’ve been swindling me right along, it seems.  Now, you’ll hand me some money to-night, and all of the balance by next Wednesday, or I’ll go straight to the superintendent.  Then you’ll lose your nice little berth here.  You putting on airs, and yet you told me how you had rebuked and paid back another cadet for doing the same breezy thing.”

Dick, his cheeks burning with the shame of having allowed himself to listen to so much, was on the very point of slipping away around the north end of Cullum Hall.  But this last remark gripped him, holding him feverishly to the spot.

“Prescott, I believe you said the fellow’s name was,” went on the stranger.

“Yes,” admitted Jordan.  “And I put it all over him in a way that should make anyone else afraid of having me for an enemy!”

Dick’s heart gave a great, almost strangling bound.  Then it was quiet again, and his ears seemed preternaturally keen.

So sharp was his hearing, in fact, that he heard a sound that did not reach the ears of the other cadet or the latter’s companion.