maybe it would be wiser for me to keep my place."

"Your place?" fired up Frank. "Except among the stuck-up cads, your place
is to be welcome to all the privileges of any well-behaved student, and
I'll see to it that you get them, too."

"Hi, Jordan; on the domestic list?" broke in Banbury just then. He had
regained the baseball and with his companion stood staring at Frank and
Ned.

"Hum! I should say so," sniggered Durkin with a chuckle. "Pah! How it
smells of onions and dishwater!"

"Take your friend and introduce him to Ritchie," sneered Banbury. "He needs
a new catcher for his measly team that we're going to wallop to-morrow."

"Say," spoke Frank steadily, though with a flashing eye, "I'll bet you that
my friend here--understand, my friend, Ned Foreman--would prove as good a
catcher as he has to my knowledge run a business where he was trusted and
did his duty well. I'll make another bet--you'll be the second-rate scholar
you are now two years further on, when my friend is the boss of some
surveying camp, where the smartest fellow is the one who has learned the
cooking and science both--not a smattering--but from the ground up."

"Yah!" yawped Banbury, but he saw something in Frank's eye that warned him
to sheer off promptly.

"You'll run up against a few cads like that fellow," explained Frank to
Ned. "Use 'em up in one chapter, and stick to the real friends I'll
introduce you to."