"Well, I don't know about that," he said as he broke Frank's grip. "This may settle the whole business."

He struck hard and straight at Merriwell's face!

CHAPTER XIII.

JUBILANT FRESHMEN.

Spat!

Merriwell staggered.

"Down you go!"

Browning followed the freshman closely, launching out again, with the full expectation that the second blow would be a settler.

Frank had been taken slightly off his guard, so that he had failed in getting away from the first blow, but he skillfully ducked the second, countering as the king's fist pa.s.sed over his shoulder.

Browning reeled backward, having received a terrific crack on the ear.

If Frank had not been slightly dazed he might have followed the soph.o.m.ore closely, but he was a bit slow in getting after Bruce.

For a few seconds the boys gave an exhibition of scientific sparring which would have proved very interesting to their comrades if all had not been too busy to watch them.

Frank Merriwell contiuued to laugh, and it had been said at Yale that he was most dangerous in an encounter when he laughed.

"You came near doing it, Browning," he admitted, "but it was rather tricky on your part. I wasn't looking for a fight."

"You will get many things you are not looking for before you have been at Yale much longer," returned the king.

"Think so?"

"Dead sure."

The two lads seemed to be very evenly matched, save that Merriwell was the more catlike on his feet. Browning was solid, and it took a terrific blow to stagger him. Merriwell was plainly the more scientific. He could get in and away from his foe in a most successful manner, but he saw that in the confined limits of a ring Browning's rush would be difficult to escape.

What the result of this encounter might have been cannot be told, for two freshmen suddenly appeared and gave the alarm that at least a hundred soph.o.m.ores were coming in a body to aid their comrades.

A moment later the sophs appeared, hurrying along the street toward the scene of the encounter.

"'Umpty-seven! 'Umpty-seven! Rah! rah! 'rah!"

Then the signal was given for the freshmen to break away and take to flight, which they promptly did.

"Oh, soph--oh, my poor soph!" cried many taunting voices.

"Good-evening, gentlemen!" called Bandy Robinson. "Shall I toss you down soap and towels?"

"Say, fellows," cried Lucy Little, "don't you think it is rather warm out this evening?"

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!" shouted Rattleton. "Has it been raining, or did we have a small shower?"

Then Merriwell's beautiful baritone voice pitched the chorus of a familiar negro melody, in which the triumphant and delighted freshmen joined:

"Git erway from de window, mah love an' mah dove!

Git erway from de window--don't yeh heah?

Come eround some odder night, For dere's gwine ter be er fight, An' dar'll be razzers er-flyin' through de air."

The soph.o.m.ores retired to a safe distance and then challenged the freshmen to come out and fight. They called them cowards and other things, but the freshmen laughed and taunted them in return.

"Is--er--King Browning present?" yelled a freshman, leaning out of a window. "If so, I'd like to inquire if he means to attend the party this evening."

"If he does," said another freshman, "he will be able to obtain a dress suit down at Cohen's, price 'von tollar ber efenin' to shentlemen.'"

"Oh, you wait till we get at you fresh ducks!" shouted back an angry soph.o.m.ore. "We'll make you sweat for this!"

"Go on! you're only fooling!" sang the freshmen.

"We'll show you we're not fooling!" excitedly declared Punch Swallow.

"We'll scalp a few of you!"

"Ah!" cried Bandy Robinson. "He is a bad man! Methinks I can detect his cloven foot."

"You're wrong," laughed Merriwell. "But you may have been near enough at some time to detect his cloven breath!"

The three freshmen who were leaning out of one of the upper windows repeated in chorus:

"Punch, brother--punch with care, Punch in the presence of the pa.s.senjair."

Another freshman shouted:

"Say, Swallows, give us a lock of your hair. It'll save the expense of gas in my room."

"I'd like a lock of it, too," declared another. "I'm troubled with rats, and I haven't any paris green handy."

"Oh, rats!" yelled twenty voices.

"h.e.l.lo, Parker!" cried Little. "I hear you were held up last night? Is it true?"

"Oh, yes," said Rattleton. "He'd been down to Morey's, and that was the way he got home."

"But oh, what a difference in the morning," sang the freshmen.

"Ask Rattleton if he means to join the Indians?" called a soph.