"Yes, but you can't lick a fellow you can't hurt." "There is no man living that can't be hurt--if you find out his tender spot. If I were forced into trouble with this Hock Mason, I should try to find how I could hurt him." "While you were finding it, Merry, he would kill you." Frank laughed again, showing not the least annoyance. "You think so, and you may be right. As I said before, I don't know as I care to have any trouble with him; but, at the same time, I am not going to run away from him. I never saw a genuine bully yet that was not a squealer when he knew he had met his master, and I'll wager something Mr. Hock Mason can be cowed, for all of his famous fight with the policemen." "If you'd seen that fight, you might have a different opinion," put in Halliday. "All he had was his bare fists, and he knocked those four cops out. Why, when he struck one of them fairly, the man went down like a stricken ox, and lay quivering on the ground. He knocked out two of them, and then he grabbed the others by the collars. Both let him have it with their clubs, but he just thumped their heads together and dropped them. They were knocked out, and I wondered if their heads were cracked. That made him a king among the freshmen. They're so scared of him that they shiver when he looks at them. I don't believe there is a freshman who likes him, but they pretend to, and they got him to his room after the fight, washed him up, plastered up his head, and then went forth and swore they knew nothing about the affair. The cops couldn't spot their man when they tried, for Mason came out the next morning looking as if nothing had happened. He wears his hair long, and he's had it clipped away around the wounds on his head, plastered the cuts up, and then combed his hair over the plasters. I tell you, he is a bad man!" "Every bad man meets his match some day," said Frank. "Mason's match is not to be found in Yale." "Perhaps not." "He's bound to be cock of the walk." "And are freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors going to allow this brutal bully to walk on their necks?" "What else can they do?" "Kill him!" cried Jack Diamond, fiercely--"kill him, by the eternal gods! He can't walk on my neck! If he tried it, I'd kill him, though I hung for it!" "I don't think it is necessary to kill him," smiled Frank. "There's always some way of subduing a bully. That way must be discovered, and he must be subdued." "We'll owe you a vote of thanks if you discover it and do the job," said Griswold. "Well, you are liable to owe Merriwell a vote of thanks, then," grunted Browning. "I've traveled all over with him, and I never saw him take water for anything that stood on legs. There are a few bad men out West, but they didn't faze him."