Grafter rose to his feet. He was a well-built fellow, nearly six feet tall, with splendid shoulders and carriage. He was the son of Mike Grafter, the well known Tammany politician, familiarly called “Reliable Mike” by his associates in New York. Although young Grafter had never been guilty of doing a day’s work in his life, he had inherited a splendid physique from his parents and had made athletics his hobby, beginning with the days of his baseball playing on the open lots in Harlem. Like his father, he was generally well liked, although it was claimed that, with his sturdy frame he had also inherited some of old Grafter’s ideas of winning in any contest by whatever method possible, either fair or otherwise. Like his father, he was also able to cover his tracks so completely that nothing crooked had ever been proved against him, and he was prompt to vigorously resent any insinuation or hint of unfairness. “I presume,” he said, “that you gentlemen have heard the saying of the late Abraham Lincoln that ‘you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time?’” “What has that to do with Merriwell?” asked Fisher. “If he is a faker,” retorted Grafter, “I swear it seems to me that he has succeeded in fooling all of the people all of the time since he started in to fool them at all.” “I’d like to know what any one means by calling him a faker,” said Phipps. Manton rose quickly from his chair and came sauntering out onto the veranda, followed by his particular friend, Denton Fisher, of the Harlem Heights A.A. “Gentlemen,” he said, a knowing smile on his smooth-shaven, bulldog face, “I think I can explain what I mean by calling Merriwell a faker. A faker is a deceiver—he pretends to accomplish things he does not actually accomplish. At college Merriwell won a great deal of glory as a football captain and a baseball player. Investigation will show that the football and baseball teams of those years were the strongest ever turned out at Yale. He obtained the reputation, while the men behind him did the work. It has been so ever since.” “Apparently,” said Phipps, “you do not give Merriwell any credit for developing such strong teams.” “I place the credit where it belongs, with the coaches. Merriwell developed nothing. He happened to be fortunate in having such good teams to back him up, and he has lived on the reputation made at Yale.” “His career since leaving Yale——” began Grafter. “What has he done? Personally, I mean. He has traveled round more or less, with an athletic team made up from the best Yale men of his day and a few clever outsiders. He still works the old game of living on the glory that should belong to others. But he is careful when he plays baseball teams to choose such teams as he can defeat in most instances. For instance——” “The Chicago Nationals,” laughed Grafter. “Didn’t he win two games off them in California?”