“No.” “Then——” “For your sister.” “My sister! Confound you! how dare you speak of her! She is nothing to you!” “She is a splendid girl, and it is a shame she has such a scoundrel for a brother.” Chester leaped up, seizing a paper-weight from the table, and swung it backward to hurl it at Dick. “You won’t throw it,” said Merriwell, with the utmost coolness, making no move to dodge or to protect himself, but looking his enemy straight in the eyes. Chester was quivering with excitement, and his lips were drawn back from his handsome white teeth. “Blazes take you, Merriwell!” panted Chester. “Some time I’ll kill you!” “Perhaps you may try it. It would be like you. Put down that paper-weight.” Dick was watching his enemy so closely that he did not see the slight movement of some curtains which hid an alcove, did not see them slightly parted, and did not observe a pair of beady black eyes that peered out at him. Some one besides Arlington and Merriwell was in that room and had been there all the time. Chester hesitated, but Dick’s dark eyes seemed to have some magnetic power over him, for he suddenly lowered his hand and tossed the paper-weight with a thud upon the table. “Better not mention my sister further,” he said huskily, shrugging his shoulders. “You touch me on a sore spot. I can’t bear to think of her having anything at all to do with you—even speaking to you.” “You asked me a question, and I answered it truthfully. You are her brother, and she worries over you. It would hurt her to have you expelled from Fardale.” “Expelled?” “That is just what will happen to you if I cease to hold Joe Savage in check. That is what is almost certain to happen to you if I go before the athletic committee and tell what I know.” “Hang you! You are bound to get me off that committee. You tried to keep me from getting on it.” “I should have done so, but I did not. That was where I made a mistake. But I had promised your mother not to interfere with your ambitions, and I——” “Bah! What did you care about such a promise to my mother?” “My friends urged me to work against you and keep you from getting on the committee. I know you are a fellow who does not hesitate to break a promise, and so you cannot understand why I should desire to keep the promise I foolishly gave your mother. I refused to interfere in any way. Seeing that, many of the fellows who would have voted against you had I used my influence declined to vote at all. Some even voted for you, thinking it might be well to have a plebe on the committee. I was one who counted the votes. I could have prevented you from winning then without making a move. I did not suppose you would find a way to sway the whole committee if you got on, and I thought it might deepen your interest in the welfare of the team if you got on. I cannot understand a fellow who will let his personal feelings lead him into working for or even desiring the defeat of his school team in order to humiliate an enemy.”