"Allow me to compliment you on your remarkable nerve, professor," chuckled Frank. "You are bold as a lion--nit." The final expressive word was spoken in an "aside," but the professor heard it, as Frank had intended he should. "Laugh, laugh, laugh!" shouted the little man, in a hoarse tone of voice. "The time has passed when you can have fun with me; I decline to permit you to have fun with me. I have decided to assert myself, and right here is where I do it." "Ye do thot, don't yez, profissor!" cried the Irish lad, in a way that made the little man squirm. "You can bet I do! Judging by the past, any one would think Frank my guardian. They'd never dream I was his. He has gone where he pleased, and done as he pleased. Look where he has dragged me! Where is this forsaken hole on the face of the earth? It's somewhere in Utah." "Blake is very easily located," said Frank, glibly. "Any schoolboy will tell you it is in Eastern Utah, on the line of the Grand Western Railway, at the point where the railroad crosses Green River. You are a little rusty on such things, professor, and so you fancy everybody else is as much a back number as yourself." "Back number!" howled the little man, leaping into the air and dashing his hat to the floor. "That is more than I can endure. You have passed the limit." Neither of the boys had ever before seen him so far forget his dignity without greater provocation, and they were not a little surprised. "Steady, professor," laughed Frank. "Don't fly off the handle." "Howld onter yersilf, profissor," chuckled Barney. "Av ye don't, ye may get broken." "This is terrible!" cried the professor, his face crimson with anger. "Frank Merriwell, you are an ungrateful, reckless, heartless young rascal!" "Oh, professor!" Frank seemed deeply touched. He grew sober in a moment, out came his handkerchief, he carried it to his eyes, and he began to sob in a pitiful way. Behind the handkerchief the mischievous lad was laughing still. The professor rushed about the room a moment, and then he stopped, staring at Frank and beginning to look distressed. "That I--should--ev-ev-ever live--to--see--this sad--hour!" sobbed the boy, with the handkerchief to his eyes. "That I should be called ungrateful and heartless by a man I have loved and honored like--like a--a sister! If my poor uncle had not died----"