Still, he wondered that a girl like her should be reading a book of detective tales. She was the sort of a girl he would have expected to see perusing love stories of the "Bertha M. Clay" class. He longed to get into conversation with her, and yet, for all of the smile with which she had seemed to greet him, something held him back and told him it was not wise to be too forward. At last she resumed reading again. She did not read long. With a faint, scornful laugh, she dropped the book in her lap. Frank fancied he saw an opportunity to "break the ice." "You do not seem to like those stories," he observed. "They are very amusing, and utterly improbable and impossible," she said. The boy laughed. "Then you fancy the author overdrew his hero?" he asked. "To be sure he did. There is no detective living who can do such astonishing things as this one is credited with. No such detective ever lived." "Possibly not." "Surely not. You cannot make me believe that a detective could come in here, look me over, and then tell everything about me almost to my name and the hour of my birth. Rubbish!" Frank's wonder at the girl was on the increase. She did not talk much like the ordinary girl of seventeen. "If you dislike the stories so much how does it happen you are reading them?" "Oh, I do not dislike them. I confess that I found them very amusing, but I am beginning to weary of them." "I consider it remarkable that you attempted reading them." "Why?" "Young ladies like you seldom care for this kind of literature." "Oh, I see. I presume not. They are too sentimental--soft, some call it. Well, I am not sentimental." "Perhaps not." She lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips a bit. "You say that as if you do not believe me. Never mind. It makes no difference whether you believe me or not." She did not seem offended, and still she gave him to understand that what he thought was of little consequence to her. "Well," laughed Frank, "I have never yet met a girl who did not declare she was bound to be an old maid, and those are the very ones who get married first." "And you think, because of that, that I must be sentimental, as I have said that I am not, do you?" "Oh, well--you see--I--I----" She interrupted him with a merry laugh. "Do not be afraid to answer. I don't mind. We are strangers, and why should I be offended?" "It is true we are strangers," said Frank; "and, as we may be seatmates for some time to come, I will offer my card." He drew out a cardcase and gave her a delicate bit of cardboard, with his name engraved upon it. "Frank Merriwell," she read. "Why, that is a splendid name, and it seems to fit you so well! I like you all the better for your name." "Whew!" thought Frank. "That is point-blank, and still she says she is not sentimental. She may not be, but she is decidedly complimentary on short acquaintance." Aloud, he said: "I am happy there is something about me that you admire, if it is no more than my name."