“Two of which were off you, Merry. That part of it didn’t fool anybody. Ha! ha! ha!” Frank flushed again. “By that I presume that you mean to insinuate that I gave him easy ones, so he might hit it out. Look here, Gris, I have told you that I do not lie. Now I am going to tell you that I did my level best to fool Hodge, for he had told me that he would bat my eye out. I thought I knew his weak points. I gave him a high inshoot, and he got a pretty single off it; I gave him one round his ankles, and he lifted it out for three bags. The fellow who says I favored him in the least says something that is not true.” “Oh, well,” said Danny, shortly, “I am not here to talk baseball. Anyway, I don’t think Hodge stands a ghost of a show to catch on. Noon is the man who will get there.” “Nit!” muttered Frank, as Danny walked away, smoking. CHAPTER XI. NED NOON MAKES AN OFFER. What Danny had said to Frank set the latter to thinking. Up to that time he had not been aware that any of his friends were kicking because of his being chummy with Hodge. Had Merriwell been a sophomore and Hodge a freshman the situation would have been altered materially, for sophomores and freshmen are natural enemies, and it is regarded as a crime for a soph to be chummy with a fresh. On the other hand, there is more or less friendliness between juniors and freshmen. Juniors do everything they can to encourage freshmen in their struggle against the sophomores, even going so far as to marshal them for their rushes and give them points to be observed in their struggles with the sophomores. It is true that there seldom seems to be any further bond of sympathy between freshmen and juniors than the dislike of both for sophomores. The discomfiture and downfall of the freshmen arouses nothing like pity on the part of the juniors; more often it causes the latter to openly express contempt. At first, the apparent friendliness of the juniors leads the unsophisticated freshmen to think the third year men really like them, and have sympathy for them; but it does not take long for the freshies to discover their mistake--it does not take long for them to find out they are a thing quite apart from the juniors in every conceivable manner except their mutual dislike for sophomores. Still, it sometimes happens that a junior and a freshman may become chums, while such friendliness between a freshman and a sophomore would be regarded as a disgrace to the latter. Frank had an independent way; he did not seem to care for traditions or precedent. He had shown that all along, but never so strongly as since becoming a junior. Almost his first act was to show friendliness toward a freshman bully, after conquering the latter in a fair struggle. This brought forth a howl from those who believed the only proper thing for him to do was to treat the bully with scorn and contempt after downing him.