THE SCAR-FACED ATHLETE.
Packard started to his feet and turned. He saw a well-dressed,
splendidly formed youth. But it was the face of the newcomer that
instantly attracted the notice of the medical student.
Such a face! It was wrinkled and scarred and disfigured with red and
purple discolorations. Plainly it had been burned in the most horrible
manner.
The stranger paused, but Defarge immediately said:
“Come right in, Hawkins. This is the gentleman I wished you to meet.”
The stranger closed the door and came forward. There was something
suggestive of confidence and power in his walk, in his every movement.
Packard immediately realized that he was in the presence of a remarkable
man.
“Mr. Packard, this is my friend Mr. Hawkins,” said Defarge.
Hawkins put out his hand, which the medical student accepted. The grip
of the scar-faced youth was soft as velvet, yet hard as iron. His hand
was the hand of a trained athlete, with every inch of him in perfect
condition. More and more Packard realized that the stranger was
uncommon.
“I have just been telling Mr. Packard of you,” said Defarge. “That is, I
mentioned you to him. Mr. Packard is a medico.”
“Indeed?” said the stranger, in a voice that was pleasant, yet suggested
power. “Why is it that medical students seem prone to indulge in
stimulants? Is it because they acquire the habit by taking liquor to
brace their nerves before going into the dissecting-room?”
He had looked at Packard with a pair of intensely piercing eyes, and
Roland shivered a bit before that deep stare.
“I presume you judge by the decanter here,” said Packard, with a motion
toward the table. “Well, your friend Defarge put that there.”
“I judge from your appearance,” said the newcomer frankly. “Your face
shows that you drink more than is good for you.”
Packard frowned. He did not fancy being told his failings thus directly
by a stranger.
“That is my business,” he said. “I presume I have a right to drink as
much as I like!”
“No, you have not.”
Roland was astounded.
“Have not?” he gasped.
“I said that.”
“Why not?”
“Because any man who has a taste for liquor, and drinks as much as he
likes, makes himself troublesome to others in some way, and no man has a
right to trouble others unnecessarily. Besides, you set a bad example
for other students. Although we may not know it, every one of us does
good, or works harm, by our example.”
Packard broke into a harsh laugh.
“What the devil have you here, Defarge?” he cried. “Is this a temperance
crank?”
The effect of this speech on the stranger was not discernible, for his
scarred face remained strangely inexpressive.
“I am no crank,” he said; “but I simply tell you the truth. Ever since
the world began, the man who has dared to tell the truth has been called
a crank. Lots of these cranks have suffered and died for their
convictions. Many of them were put to death because they believed and
preached things which the world soon after accepted as scientific
truths.”
Packard gave himself a shake. Surely this was a remarkable chap. All at
once Roland seized the decanter and poured out a glass of whisky, which
he offered to the scar-faced youth.
“Here,” he said, “take this. It will cheer you up. You must be dead sore
on yourself. I’ll drink with you; Defarge will join us. Let’s be
agreeable.”
The one invited shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I am one of those peculiar persons who practises what he
preaches.”
“You do not drink?”
“No.”
“Not even beer?”
“Not a drop of anything that has alcohol in it. I am an athlete, and no
man who seeks to reach his highest ability as an athlete should
deliberately poison himself with alcohol.”
“But a little is good for a man. At least, it is good just when he is on
the point of making some great exertion.”
“It is not!” positively declared the other. “It is the very worst thing
he can take.”
“Oh, get out! Anybody knows it gives him a feeling of strength.”
“A false feeling, sir. Tests and investigations have shown that a man
can lift greater weights and perform severer feats of strength when he
has not taken a single drop of liquor than he can when he has taken a
moderate amount to stimulate him. The liquor makes him believe himself
stronger and makes him want to display his power, but every swallow robs
him of vital energy. Now, in your case, your face plainly shows that you
are swiftly becoming an habitual drinker. You must stop it soon, or you
will go straight to the devil, sir.”
Packard had been standing with the glass of whisky in his hand. As the
man talked, Roland observed his hand beginning to shake.
“Well,” he said, “at least it is good to steady the nerves.” And he
dashed off the fiery stuff at one great swallow.
“That’s another mistaken belief,” declared Hawkins quietly. “See! are
your nerves any steadier than mine? You drink; I do not. Are your nerves
steadier to-day than they were before you began to drink? Can you not
remember the time when your hand never trembled?”
“Yes, but——”
“But now your nerves shake at times, and you drink whisky to steady
them. The whisky has weakened them already by putting a strain upon
them, and that is why they shake. When you drink more whisky you steady
them with a renewed strain; but that strain simply results eventually in
making them still weaker. Being a student of medicine, you ought to know
that.”
Packard did know it, but it seemed that he had never thought of it
seriously before. He knew plenty of medical students who were steady
drinkers, and they seemed careless of the final result. They were a
jovial set of fellows now; but Packard suddenly realized that the future
must hold disappointment and failure for many of them.
For one single instant a grisly phantom of future ruin rose before
Packard himself, but he quickly brushed it aside, forcing a laugh.
“I believe in living while we live,” he declared. “What’s the use of
denying ourselves every good thing of life in order to live a year or
two longer?”
“Every good thing of life! My dear Mr. Packard, you are making one of
the greatest errors a man can make. Look at me. I deny myself no good
thing of life. Whisky is not good. Alcohol is not good in any form. It
is only the boy with the inherited taste for it that ever relishes his
first drink. To a perfectly healthy fellow that first drink is
repulsive. You know it, Mr. Packard. You say you believe in living and
enjoying life. Man, you do not know what it is to enjoy life! You cannot
know what it is as long as you do not feel perfect health pulsing all
through your body. No drinker ever feels like that. Under the influence
of the stuff he takes into his stomach, he may feel good for a short
time, but the reaction always follows, and he suffers for his short
enjoyment. It is not a case of shortening life a year or two, but most
drinkers shorten it from ten to thirty years. And they die wretched
wrecks. What’s the use to talk about it?”
“Didn’t you ever drink?” asked Roland wonderingly.
“Yes.”
“Ah!”
“Long ago I was fool enough to do so. I was a boy then, and I thought it
manly. But I learned my lesson and learned it well. See this face! It
marks me for life and makes me an object of repulsion. If I had never
touched liquor, I doubt if I should have been thus disfigured now. I
entered a burning building, in an attempt to rescue a man. Another boy
was with me. We flung open the door of a room, and fire shot out and
enveloped me. It seemed as if my very breath took flame. I fell to the
floor, and the other chap dragged me away.”
“Wasn’t he burned?”
“No.”
“It just happened that way. It was fate.”
“It seemed to be punishment. I hated the other fellow, and I had tried
to do him harm. He was an athletic chap, and he would not drink. I hated
him because he seemed to think himself too good to drink. He had been
given a medal for saving a life. I got hold of that medal. Another boy
was accused of stealing it. As I did not like the other fellow, I should
have remained quiet and let things go; but when I was burned I thought
my time had come. I confessed. Of course, all the odium of the affair
fell on me when I recovered, and I was compelled to leave school. But I
swore then and there that I would never touch a drink again, and that I
would become an athlete capable of defeating the fellow I had tried to
down. From that day to this I have worked steadily to build myself up
and reach a state of perfection. I believe I have succeeded, and now I
am ready for the test. All I ask is to meet my old enemy in any kind of
a contest.”
“And this enemy of whom you speak—what is his name?”
“Frank Merriwell!” declared the youthful athlete with the scarred face.