The eyes of the Frenchman glistened. “Very true, sare; but mere brute strength can nevare make any man ze fittest—nevare. You theenk so? You are wrong—pardone me eef I speak ze truth plainly.” “But I do not think so, monsieur. It takes a combination of strength and brains to make a well-balanced man.” “And skeel—do not forget skeel. Eet is ze most important of all, sare.” “Brains give ability, strength gives power to exercise that ability.” “And skeel defeats ze man with strength and brains. Oh, eet does! Ze man with too much strength, with ze beeg muscles; he ees handicap against ze man with just ze propare development and no more. His beeg muscles tie him, make him awkward.” “Again I am compelled to agree with you,” smiled Frank; “and I confess that I consider fencing the most perfect method of developing ease, grace, quickness and skill—attributes essential to any man who desires to reach the highest pinnacle of development.” “You have ze unusual wisdom on zat point, sare,” acknowledged L’Estrange. “Eet is strange, for seldom have I met ze great athlete who did not theenk himself superior to ze expert fencer. Eet is plain you know your weakness, sare.” Bart Hodge opened his lips to say something, but Merry checked him with a quick look. “I have fenced a little, monsieur,” explained Frank—“enough to get an idea of its value and importance.” “Zat ees goode. You take eet up at school—at college?” “Yes, first at Fardale, and later I followed it up at Yale.” “Ah! but you could not have ze propare instruction—no! no! Ze American instructor he seldom know very much about eet. He ees crude; but he have ze—ze—what you call eet? Ze swell head. He theenk he knows eet all. _Oui!_” “That is a fact in many instances,” acknowledged Merriwell. At this point Morton whispered in Bart Hodge’s ear: “L’Estrange is started and he will bore Merriwell with talk about fencing, unless we find a way to interrupt it and break away. We must be careful not to offend him.” There was a strange, half-hidden smile on Bart’s lips as he turned to their host. “Let the man talk,” he said, in a low tone. “Before he is through Merry will give him the call. You may not believe it, but I doubt if the Frenchman can tell Frank anything new about fencing.” “Oh, L’Estrange is a graduate of Joinville-le-Pont, the great government school of France.” Morton said this as if it settled a point, and Hodge knew the man thought him presuming in fancying Frank’s information on fencing was to be compared with that of the great French master of the art. In the meantime, all his enthusiasm aroused, L’Estrange ardently continued: