"Permit me to do the honors," said Harris, grandly. "Just nominate your poison, and I will deal it out."

So each one called for what he desired, and Harris supplied them, using a pocket-knife with which to cut the cake and pie.

"Aren't you glad you came, Merriwell?" asked Sam, with his mouth full of fruit cake.

"Sure," smiled Frank, as he helped himself. "I shall not regret it, if it gives me indigestion."

Frank believed Wat Snell was a sneak, but he did not fancy it would be at all necessary to accept the fellow as a friend just because they had met under such circ.u.mstances. He meant to use Snell well, and let it go at that.

The boys thoroughly enjoyed their clandestine feast. It was a luxury a hundred times dearer than a feast from similar things could have been had there been no secrecy about it and had it been perfectly allowable.

They gorged themselves till they could eat no more, and the contents of the box proved none too plentiful for their ravenous appet.i.tes. When they had finished, nothing but a few crumbs were left.

"There," sighed Harvey Dare, "I haven't felt so full as this before since the last time Harris had a box."

"Nor I," said Wat Snell, lighting a cigarette. "Have one, Merriwell?"

Frank declined to smoke, but his example was not followed by any of the other lads. Each one took a cigarette and "fired up."

"You ought to smoke, Merriwell," said Dare. "There's lots of pleasure in it."

"Perhaps so," admitted Frank; "but I don't care for it, and, as it is against the rules, it keeps me out of trouble by not smoking."

"It's against the rules to indulge in this kind of a feast, old man.

You can't be too much of a stickler for rules."

"It doesn't do to be too goody-good," put in Snell, insinuatingly.

"Such rubbish doesn't go with the fellows."

"I don't think any one can accuse me of playing the goody-good," said Frank, quietly. "I like fun as well as any one, as you all know, but I do not care for cigarettes, and so I do not smoke them. I don't wish to take any credit to myself, so I make no claim to resisting a temptation, for they are no temptation to me."

"Lots of fellows smoke who do not like cigarettes," a.s.sured Sam Winslow.

"Well, I can't understand why they do so," declared Merriwell.

"They do it for fun."

"I fail to see where the fun comes in. There are enough improper things that I would like to do for me not to care about those things that are repugnant to me. Some time ago I made up my mind never to do a thing I did not want to do, or did not give me pleasure, unless it was absolutely necessary, or was required as a courtesy to somebody else. I am trying to stick by that rule."

"Oh, don't talk about rules!" cut in Dare. "It makes me weary! We have enough of rules here at this academy, without making any for ourselves."

"Come, fellows," broke in Hodge; "let's get down to business."

"Business?" said Frank, questioningly. "I thought this was a case of sport?"

"It is. You mustn't be so quick to catch up a word."

The table was cleared, and the boys gathered round it, Hodge producing a pack of cards, the seal of which had not been broken.

"You'll notice that those papers are all right," he said, significantly. "n.o.body's had a chance to tamper with them."

"What do you play?" asked Frank, to whose face a strange look had come on sight of the cards.

"Oh, we play most anything--euchre, seven up, poker----"

"Poker?"

"Yes; just a light game--penny ante--to make it interesting. You know there's no interest in poker unless there's some risk."

The strange look grew on Frank Merriwell's face. He seemed in doubt, as if hesitating over something.

"I--I think I will go back to the room," he said.

"What's that?" exclaimed several, in amazement. "Why, you have just got here."

"But I am not feeling--exactly right. What I have eaten may give me a headache, and I have a hard day before me to-morrow."

"Oh, but we can't let you go now, old man," said Harris, decidedly.

"You must stop a while. If your head begins to ache and gets real bad, of course you can go, but I don't see how you can get out now."

Frank did not see either. He had accepted Harris' hospitality, had eaten freely of the good things Harris had provided, and the boys would vote him a prig if he left them for his bed as soon as the feast was finished. It would seem that he was afraid of being discovered absent from his room--as if he did not dare to share the danger with them.

Frank was generally very decided in what he did, and it was quite unusual for him to hesitate over anything.

There is an old saying that "He who hesitates is lost."

In this case it proved true.

"Oh, all right, fellows," said Frank, lightly. "I'll stop a while and watch you play."

"But you must take a hand--you really must, you know," urged Harvey Dare. "Our game is small. We'll put on a limit to suit you--anything you say."

"I do not play poker, if that is your game."

"Don't you know how?"

"Well, yes, I know a little something about it, but I swore off more than a year ago."

"n.o.body ever swears off on anything for more than a year. Sit in and take a hand."

Still he refused, and they finally found it useless to urge him, so the game was begun without him, and he looked on.

The limit was set at ten cents, and it was to be a regular penny ante game.

There was some hesitation over the limit, which Bart named, winking meaningly at one or two of the fellows who seemingly started to protest.

Surely there could not be much harm in such a light game! No one could lose a great deal.