“Don’t worry in the least,” said Frank. “Go ahead and write the agreement.” The manager of the Outcasts brought forth a large notebook. On one of the pages he wrote in the briefest manner possible the agreement, to which he signed his name. Frank read it over and promptly added his signature. Then Grafter and Hodge signed as witnesses, and the affair was settled. Grafter was relieved, and he betrayed it. “I was afraid you two would blow up over it,” he confessed. “I want to see the game pulled off. I believe it’s going to be the hottest kind of a tussle.” “Then there is another reason,” said McGann. “But I fancy your old man would be far better off if no game took place.” Then it came out that, at the advice of Wallace, old man Grafter had bet that the Merriwells could defeat the Outcasts. He had done this without knowing what team he was backing, which demonstrated his implicit confidence in the judgment of his son. “That’s how I happened to bring Mr. McGann to you,” laughed Grafter the younger. “Now I hope you can show the old man that my confidence in you was not misplaced.” Frank knew it would be useless to express his view in regard to gambling. Wallace Grafter had been brought up in the full knowledge of his father’s ways, and to him gambling was something forbidden by cranks who knew nothing of the real pleasure in venturing the winning on a contest of skill or a game of chance. It is remarkable how some men close their eyes to the bad results of gambling. They have tasted the pleasurable excitement of it, and they regard it, if not as a means of revenue, as a pastime in which the strong-minded may indulge without harm to any one. But gambling has ruined more men than drink. It is a vice that may be practiced secretly, and, unfortunately, it seldom leaves its branding marks on the boy or young man who becomes its victim. When a man begins to drink hard his features tell on him, even though he is clever enough to refrain from getting drunk. His changed face warns his employer, who may take precautions in regard to the victim of drink. But there are no telltale signals hung out on the face of the young gambler who follows the races, the pool rooms, or occasionally plunges heavily in stocks. His employer is unwarned until the crash comes and the young man flees, a defaulter, or blows out his brains, disgraced and dishonored. Are there not men who gamble mildly, without harm to any one? No! The man who does a wrong thing sets an example before others. Even if he has such perfect control of himself that he may never indulge to excess, his example may lead some weaker soul into the crooked path that leads through fields of pleasure and pain to the gate of Purgatory.