THE MAD STUDENT.
It was with a feeling of unadulterated satisfaction that Gene
Skelding left the perfumed rooms of Rupert Chickering, after
having expressed his opinion of the Chickering set, separately and
collectively.
It had always seemed a little strange to any one who knew Gene
that he had been one of the members of that crew of worthless
cigarette-smokers. For Skelding was a fighter, and he was the only
genuine fighter in the collection. The others were cowards of the
most abject sort.
Skelding had a way of closing his mouth firmly, and keeping it
closed, which was a most difficult thing for any other member of
the set to do.
Indeed, Tilton Hull found it possible to keep his mouth closed only
when it was held thus by his collar propping his lower jaw up. Take
away his collar, and his jaw drooped at once.
Lew Veazie always carried his mouth open, breathing through it from
habit. It would have caused him great discomfort, not to say agony,
had he been compelled to close his mouth and keep it thus for three
minutes without a break.
Of course, Ollie Lord imitated Veazie in everything, and he fancied
that the insipid, brainless expression of a cigarette-smoker with
open mouth in repose was proper.
Julian Ives breathed through his mouth from habit, but Chickering
had a way of pressing his lips together, turning up his eyes,
clasping his pale hands, and looking like a saint. This was the
expression he wore as Skelding retired from the room, and he hoped
it would be so impressed on Gene’s mind that the “rude fellow”
would come to believe in time that he had done Rupert a great
wrong. Skelding afterward spoke of that look as reminding him of a
dying calf.
Gene descended the stairs, stepped on the steps, and drew several
deep breaths, as if he would clear his lungs of the atmosphere that
had defiled them while he was in that room. He was satisfied with
himself and what he had done.
For some time he had been growing more and more disgusted with the
Chickering crowd. Of late he had appeared in public with them as
seldom as possible. Skelding was not a fool, and he saw at last
that his folly in taking up with such fellows had given him his
standing at Yale, and that standing was not pleasant to contemplate.
At last he had been taught the old, old lesson that a man is judged
by the company he keeps. Most boys are told this early in life, but
somehow it seems to have little impression on them until their eyes
are opened by experience. Shun bad company; better have no friends
than to be friendly with the wrong sort of fellows.
Skelding had never smoked cigarettes until he fell in with the
Chickering crowd. Then it was nothing more than natural that he
should take to them, for they were forever near him, being smoked
by his companions and offered to him.
He had not found them agreeable at first, but surely he, big and
strong, could endure as much as that little whipper-snapper Veazie,
and so he had persisted in using them until the habit was set upon
him.
A dozen times he had vowed that he would smoke no more, but always
he had found the things at hand in Chickering’s room, and the cloud
of smoke hanging there almost constantly led him to break his
pledge. The man who does not smoke is annoyed to extremes by the
smoke of others; but he soon ceases to notice it if he fires up and
joins them.
Now, however, Skelding paused on the step and shook his light
overcoat with the idea of getting the smoke smell out of it. Never
before had the fresh air seemed so good to him. He drew it into his
lungs with satisfaction and relief. Then he reached into a pocket
of that overcoat and took out part of a package of cigarettes.
“There!” he exclaimed; “by the eternal hills, I am done with you
forever! You are the badge of degeneracy.”
He threw the package away. It seemed to him that at that moment he
had severed the last strand that had bound him to the Chickering
set.
There was untold satisfaction in the feeling of relief and freedom
which came to him. He looked back on what he had been, and
wondered at his folly. He contemplated his association with Rupert
Chickering and his pals, wondering that he could have found any
satisfaction in such company. No matter what happened, he was done
with them.
It is hard to understand how great a thing this was for him to do.
Skelding was a man who liked companionship. He was not given to
the habit of solitude, and he desired friends. But he knew that,
without doubt, he was cutting himself off from the only men who
would be friendly toward him while he remained in college.
He had been stamped with the odious brand of Chickering, and other
men would not care to associate with him. Nevertheless, he felt
better.
“I’ll go it alone,” he said grimly. “It’s the best thing I can do
now.”
Then he thought of Defarge, and he felt a sudden sympathy for him.
They were both outcasts. Perhaps they might strike up a friendship.
A few seconds later he was on the way to the room of Bertrand.
Skelding did not pause to knock. Turning the knob quietly, he
entered the room. Defarge, thin, haggard, wild-looking, was
standing by a table, loading a revolver. He muttered to himself:
“It’s my only way to escape! I feel that he has released me from
the spell, so that I am my own master now; but he may put it in me
the next time we meet, and I shall be the slave of his devilish
eyes! He must die!”
“Defarge!”
Skelding spoke, and, with a little cry, Bertrand whirled round,
pointing the revolver at the newcomer. The hand that held the
weapon shook violently.
“My dear fellow,” said Gene, stepping forward, “you could not hit
a house that was ten feet away. Your nerves are in terrible shape,
my boy.”
Defarge lowered the revolver.
“I--I thought it was he!” he said hoarsely.
“Whom do you mean?”
“Merriwell.”
“Did you think he had come?”
“Yes.”
“Why should he do that?”
“He has done it before now. He came here once and looked at me with
those eyes of his. I don’t remember much after that, but I know I
talked and told him things I did not mean to tell. I thought he had
come again.”
“What did you mean to do in case he had?”
“Shoot him!”
“You could not have hit him at a distance of ten feet. You were
shaking like a leaf.”
“I know--I know! You see what I’ve come to. He is to blame for it
all.” The eyes of Defarge were glaring and bloodshot.
“You may be somewhat to blame yourself. Do you remember what I told
you the other morning, after fighting with you here all night to
keep you still and prevent you from doing something that would ruin
you forever?”
“Oh, I don’t remember much about it. I know you were here, but
that’s all. I was rather nutty that night, wasn’t I?”
“Rather,” said Skelding dryly. “You thought you had choked and
drowned Merriwell in Italy or somewhere. You were haunted by his
eyes.”
“Curse those eyes! They haunt me all the time! Skelding, you don’t
suppose the fellow has the power of second sight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, it seems to me as if he is watching me all the while, and
that is why I can’t get away from those eyes. I have tried to get
away from them in the dark, but in the dark I see them and they
seem to see me all the plainer.”
“Absinth is what ails you, Defarge. You’ve got to quit it--or go up
the spout.”
“I--I don’t believe I can quit it,” confessed Bertrand, with a
pitiful expression of helplessness. “It’s the only thing that
soothes my nerves.”
“It may seem to quiet them for the time, but it tears you all to
pieces afterward, and you know it. And every time you take the
stuff you are becoming more and more its victim. It has a fearful
hold on you already.”
Defarge trembled.
“Oh, if I could do one thing I would be all right!” he cried.
“What’s that?”
“Get away from those eyes! I’ll do it, too! I’m going to get away
from them! I know a way!”
Skelding thought of the revolver, which Bertrand had been loading.
It was lying on the table now, beside two boxes of cartridges.
“How do you mean?” he asked. “You’re not thinking of shooting
yourself?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then----”
“Of shooting him!”
“Merriwell?”
“That’s it! that’s it! It’s the only way, I tell you! Don’t talk to
me! I’ve figured it all out. When his eyes are closed they will
trouble me no more. I’m going to close them forever!”
“He’s been drinking again to-night!” thought Gene. “He is full of
the stuff, and it’s impossible to reason with him now. How can I
handle him? I must find a way to do so without letting him know it.
“That is a desperate remedy, don’t you think?” he said aloud.
“Perhaps so, but it’s a desperate case. I can’t sleep nights,
Skelding. The minute I put out my light and lie down I see those
eyes watching me. Even though I close my own eyes tightly I see
them just the same. Skelding, the only thing that can save me from
the madhouse is the death of Merriwell! I’ve thought it all out,
and I have arrived at that conviction.”
“And you bought a revolver for that purpose?”
“Oh, no! I bought that to use at the political celebration last
fall. Bought a box of blanks to go with it, but I did not fire them
all. There are some of them in that box there. I bought the other
box to-day.”
“The others are not blanks.”
“I guess not. Told the man I bought them of that I wanted to use
them to shoot a dog. That was right, too! I am going to shoot a dog
with them!”
“You have loaded the revolver with the new cartridges?”
“Sure thing. It’s all ready now.”
“Well, let’s talk this over a little. Sit down, Defarge.”
Skelding had taken a seat by the table.
“Wait,” said Bertrand. He took a bottle from a little closet and
looked at it. It was empty. “I must have a drink,” he declared, his
hand shaking. “Wait a minute till I come back. I know a fellow who
has something in his room.”
He slipped out of his room, leaving Skelding there. In less than
five minutes he was back, his face flushed and a changed expression
in his eyes.
“I found something,” he said. “Now I’m all right for a while! Now I
have nerve! It’s when I feel this way that I’m ready for anything!
It’s when I feel this way that I shall do the job! I’ll put out
those eyes so they’ll never bother me any more! Look at my hand.
See how steady it is.”
He held it out, and Gene saw that it did not shake.
“Good,” nodded Skelding. “Now you should be able to sit down and
talk without getting daffy.”
“What’s the use? I know what you want to say to me. You fool! Why,
Skelding, I thought you were one of Merriwell’s bitterest enemies!”
“I was--once.”
“But you’ve lost your nerve, just like all the others.”
“It’s not that. I have had my eyes opened.”
“Bah! Don’t tell me! You do not love him any more than you did
before, but you have lost your nerve. I am the only man left with
any nerve, and I get that from the right kind of stuff. They think
Merriwell is the only thing that ever happened here! He has put
them all under a spell--all, all! I believe he has put you under a
spell! You’d never have changed like this if he hadn’t--never! But
his time is limited! I swear it! Why did I load that revolver? Ha,
ha! Why, for a dog, of course. When is the best time to shoot dogs?
Tell me that, Skelding. Tell me!”
Gene saw that Defarge was in a condition of excitement bordering on
frenzy, and he wondered how he was going to control the fellow. It
would not do to leave him then, for he might do any desperate deed.
“The night is the best time to shoot dogs!” declared Bertrand.
“It’s night now. Now is the time, and I’ll do it!”
He caught the revolver from the table.
“What are you going to do?” gasped Gene, starting up.
“I am going to shoot that dog!” cried Defarge, as he bolted like a
madman from the room.
“Stop!” shouted Skelding, leaping after him.
Down the stairs went Defarge, taking four and five at a time.
Skelding sprang after him with reckless haste, determined to
overtake and stop him somehow. It was a wild chase. The deranged
fellow reached the foot of the last flight and bounded out of
doors. Gene was not far behind. Away they went toward Vanderbilt
Hall.
“He’s going to try to shoot Merriwell now!” panted Skelding. “That
last drink turned him into a madman.”
It happened that they met no one. Up to Merriwell’s room rushed
Defarge, with Skelding gaining on him. But Gene was not able to
overtake the maniac.
As Gene came up he saw the door to Merriwell’s room standing open.
A light was shining from within. Defarge had just leaped into the
room, and Merriwell, who had been writing, had risen quickly from
his desk.
Then Skelding saw Defarge thrust the muzzle of the revolver right
against Frank Merriwell’s breast and fire. There was a flash, a
puff of smoke, and the muffled report of the weapon.
Merriwell had made absolutely no move to save himself, and the
madman had fired pointblank at Frank’s heart, the muzzle of the
weapon being not more than six inches from the breast of the
intended victim.