THE BOY WHO WAS HAZED "Well, Porter, proceed." Ralph gave the direction. He and Fred were seated in the garden summer-house, settled comfortably on benches facing each other across a rustic table, after a good breakfast, a general restful feeling permeating them. "All right," assented Fred. "Before I begin, though, I wish to make a remark. The way your mother and yourself have treated me has been just royal--I'll never forget it!" "And never forget us," directed the young engineer with a warm, friendly smile. "You'll always find yourself welcome in this house." "That's what gets me," said Fred, and there was a slight tremor and a suspicion of tears in his voice. "Most fellows would have little to do with an impostor, eh?" "That's a pretty hard word, Porter," intimated Ralph. "Just the same, I believe in you. I have had confidence in you all along." "And my story won't disturb it any," declared Fred. "Well, to begin--my name is not Marvin Clark." "Of course, I know that already." "It is Fred Porter." "So you have told me." "I am an orphan, homeless. As I said when I first came here, I have been a sort of a knockabout, a wanderer. I have been a poor boy. The real Marvin Clark, whose father is the real and genuine president of the Middletown & Western Railroad, is a rich boy. I have saved his life when he was drowning. He likes me for that, and there isn't much that he wouldn't do for me." "You deserve it," said Ralph. "Well, to make a long story short, he was a student at the Earlville Academy. He's a fine, manly fellow, nothing sneaking or mean about him. One night, though, he and his school chums got to cutting up. They raided the town and had a dozen fights with the village boys. One of them was taken prisoner, a lad named Ernest Gregg. The academy fellows decided to haze him. They put him through an awful course of sprouts. They ducked him in the river, scared him with mock gunpowder explosions, and wound up by tying him blindfolded to a switch near a railroad track. They left him there all night. The result was that when little Ernest was discovered the next morning, he was in a high fever and delirious." "Too bad," murmured Ralph. "I don't think much of your Marvin Clark." "Hold on, don't misjudge him. He helped to capture the enemy, as they called poor little Gregg, but he left the crowd right after that, supposing his chums would scare their captive a bit and let him go. Clark had no hand whatever in the downright persecution that sent the boy to the hospital. It seems that some of the gunpowder got into the eyes of the little fellow, and the douse in the river had given him a cold. The scare he got had nearly driven him out of his right mind, for he was a timid little fellow. A month later Ernest was discharged from the hospital nearly blind, thin, pale and weakly, a mere shadow of his former self." "Of course the academy fellows tried to make up for all that," suggested Ralph.