BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN
MERRIWELL SERIES
Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell
PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS
_Fascinating Stories of Athletics_
A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will
attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of
two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with
the rest of the world.
These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and
athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be
of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.
They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a
good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous
right-thinking man.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
1—Frank Merriwell’s School Days By Burt L. Standish
2—Frank Merriwell’s Chums By Burt L. Standish
3—Frank Merriwell’s Foes By Burt L. Standish
4—Frank Merriwell’s Trip West By Burt L. Standish
5—Frank Merriwell Down South By Burt L. Standish
6—Frank Merriwell’s Bravery By Burt L. Standish
7—Frank Merriwell’s Hunting Tour By Burt L. Standish
8—Frank Merriwell in Europe By Burt L. Standish
9—Frank Merriwell at Yale By Burt L. Standish
10—Frank Merriwell’s Sports Afield By Burt L. Standish
11—Frank Merriwell’s Races By Burt L. Standish
12—Frank Merriwell’s Party By Burt L. Standish
13—Frank Merriwell’s Bicycle Tour By Burt L. Standish
14—Frank Merriwell’s Courage By Burt L. Standish
15—Frank Merriwell’s Daring By Burt L. Standish
16—Frank Merriwell’s Alarm By Burt L. Standish
17—Frank Merriwell’s Athletes By Burt L. Standish
18—Frank Merriwell’s Skill By Burt L. Standish
19—Frank Merriwell’s Champions By Burt L. Standish
20—Frank Merriwell’s Return to Yale By Burt L. Standish
21—Frank Merriwell’s Secret By Burt L. Standish
22—Frank Merriwell’s Danger By Burt L. Standish
23—Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty By Burt L. Standish
24—Frank Merriwell in Camp By Burt L. Standish
25—Frank Merriwell’s Vacation By Burt L. Standish
26—Frank Merriwell’s Cruise By Burt L. Standish
27—Frank Merriwell’s Chase By Burt L. Standish
28—Frank Merriwell in Maine By Burt L. Standish
29—Frank Merriwell’s Struggle By Burt L. Standish
30—Frank Merriwell’s First Job By Burt L. Standish
31—Frank Merriwell’s Opportunity By Burt L. Standish
32—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Luck By Burt L. Standish
33—Frank Merriwell’s Protégé By Burt L. Standish
34—Frank Merriwell on the Road By Burt L. Standish
35—Frank Merriwell’s Own Company By Burt L. Standish
36—Frank Merriwell’s Fame By Burt L. Standish
37—Frank Merriwell’s College Chums By Burt L. Standish
38—Frank Merriwell’s Problem By Burt L. Standish
39—Frank Merriwell’s Fortune By Burt L. Standish
40—Frank Merriwell’s New Comedian By Burt L. Standish
41—Frank Merriwell’s Prosperity By Burt L. Standish
42—Frank Merriwell’s Stage Hit By Burt L. Standish
43—Frank Merriwell’s Great Scheme By Burt L. Standish
44—Frank Merriwell in England By Burt L. Standish
45—Frank Merriwell on the Boulevards By Burt L. Standish
46—Frank Merriwell’s Duel By Burt L. Standish
47—Frank Merriwell’s Double Shot By Burt L. Standish
48—Frank Merriwell’s Baseball Victories By Burt L. Standish
49—Frank Merriwell’s Confidence By Burt L. Standish
50—Frank Merriwell’s Auto By Burt L. Standish
51—Frank Merriwell’s Fun By Burt L. Standish
52—Frank Merriwell’s Generosity By Burt L. Standish
53—Frank Merriwell’s Tricks By Burt L. Standish
54—Frank Merriwell’s Temptation By Burt L. Standish
55—Frank Merriwell on Top By Burt L. Standish
56—Frank Merriwell’s Luck By Burt L. Standish
57—Frank Merriwell’s Mascot By Burt L. Standish
58—Frank Merriwell’s Reward By Burt L. Standish
59—Frank Merriwell’s Phantom By Burt L. Standish
60—Frank Merriwell’s Faith By Burt L. Standish
61—Frank Merriwell’s Victories By Burt L. Standish
62—Frank Merriwell’s Iron Nerve By Burt L. Standish
63—Frank Merriwell in Kentucky By Burt L. Standish
64—Frank Merriwell’s Power By Burt L. Standish
65—Frank Merriwell’s Shrewdness By Burt L. Standish
In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books
listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York
City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.
To Be Published in July, 1923.
66—Frank Merriwell’s Set Back By Burt L. Standish
67—Frank Merriwell’s Search By Burt L. Standish
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frank Merriwell’s Trust
OR,
NEVER SAY DIE
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
Author of the famous MERRIWELL STORIES.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1901
By STREET & SMITH
Frank Merriwell’s Trust
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRANK MERRIWELL’S TRUST.
-------
CHAPTER I.
JACK DIAMOND’S FRIENDS.
“Jack Diamond—am I dreaming?”
Frank Merriwell uttered the exclamation. He was in front of the Hoffman
House, in New York. Three young men in evening dress had just left the
hotel, and were about to enter a cab that had drawn up to the curb for
them. Frank stared in astonishment at one of them. He was a slender,
clean-cut, handsome fellow.
“Jack Diamond!” he repeated; “can it be? Why, I supposed he was in
London!”
One of the men, his silk hat thrust recklessly back on his curly yellow
hair, was speaking to the driver. The other, with a mustache black as
midnight, was holding the door open for the third to enter the cab.
Frank sprang forward.
“Diamond!” he called, “is that you?”
The youth who was already half-way into the cab drew back and turned
round.
“Who is it?” he asked, his voice sounding a trifle thick and unnatural.
Frank was before him. It was eleven o’clock at night, but the bright
lights of Broadway made it almost like day.
“Merriwell!” exclaimed the young fellow in the evening suit and
opera-coat. “Is that you?”
“Sure as you live!” cried Frank, with outstretched hand. “But I thought
I was dreaming. I wasn’t sure it was you.”
Their hands met, while Diamond’s two companions looked on in silence, as
if not quite pleased.
“Man alive!” came from Frank, “I thought you on the other side of the
pond. What does this mean?”
“It means that I’m back here,” said Jack. “But I supposed you in New
Haven. How do you happen to be here?”
“Various things have combined to keep me here since I came down from
college. The story is too long for me to tell now, but I’ve had some
rather interesting adventures.”
“Well, old man, I’m right glad to see you again. Let me introduce my
friends. Mr. Herrick, Mr. Merriwell; Mr. Madison, Mr. Merriwell.”
Herrick was the older of the two, and the possessor of the black
mustache. Madison had a smooth, almost boyish face, with a head of curly
yellow hair. Frank took an instant dislike to Herrick, who had the air
of a rounder. Madison seemed more like a rather gay young fellow,
although there was a dissipated look on his face and his eyes met
Frank’s with an effort.
Frank could see that these men had been drinking, although Herrick gave
little evidence of it. The latter shook hands politely, simply repeating
Frank’s name; but Madison grasped Merry’s hand, crying:
“Glad to know you, Mr. Merriwell. Glad to know anybody who is Jack
Diamond’s friend. Let’s have a drink.”
“Steady, Billy,” warned Herrick, in a low tone. “Don’t slop over, my
boy.”
“Oh, to blazes with that!” returned Madison, laughing. “What do we care?
We’re out for a time, and we don’t give a rap who knows it. Let’s all go
in and take a drink.”
“We haven’t time,” asserted the man with the black mustache, looking at
his watch.
“Time! Great Scott! we’ve got all the time there is! Don’t anybody own
any of my time till ten o’clock to-morrow.”
“And I’ve got time to burn,” asserted Diamond, his voice again sounding
thick. “I think I need another drink. Fact is, I know I need it. Let’s
have it.”
“All right, if you will have it,” said Herrick, as if giving in with
great reluctance. “But I think you’ve taken enough for the present.”
Frank thought Jack had taken altogether too much. He was surprised and
distressed to find his college comrade in such a condition.
“See here, Jack,” he said, taking Diamond’s arm, “you had better drop
this. You’re on a spree, and you must stop drinking at once.”
“My dear boy,” said Diamond, with a reckless laugh, “I’ve been on it for
a week now, and I’ve just begun.”
To Merry’s surprise, the Virginian did not show the least sign of shame.
This was all the more astonishing, as Jack was ever proud and sensitive,
and had never seemed to be a drinker.
“Something has happened to start him off this way,” Merriwell instantly
decided. “He is in a reckless mood.”
“I have to return to college in the morning, old man,” he said
persuasively. “We haven’t seen each other for a long time. Come round to
my room in the Fifth Avenue and let’s have a talk.”
“Excuse me,” Herrick spoke up. “Mr. Diamond has an important
engagement.”
“That’s right, Merry,” agreed Jack, at once. “Just come along with me.
I’ll show you the town to-night.”
“Yes, we can take Mr. Merriwell along,” said Herrick.
“Of course we can,” cried Madison. “The more the merrier. But it won’t
be our fault if he gets scratched with the tiger’s claws.”
“No danger of that,” asserted Diamond. “He never fools with the tiger.”
Herrick seemed disappointed. “Is that so? Then I’m afraid he won’t find
it very interesting to come along.”
“Yes, he will,” declared Jack. “Besides, he has always been a mascot to
me, and I need one just now.”
Frank’s ears were wide open, and he fancied he understood the meaning of
this talk, in which case he was more than ever alarmed for Diamond.
“If I could get him away and have a talk with him,” thought Frank, “I’d
soon be able to learn the truth.”
But the Southerner was “out for a racket,” and Frank soon saw it would
be useless to try to induce him to go quietly to a room in the Fifth
Avenue Hotel.
“We’re fooling away lots of time here,” said Herrick impatiently. “We’ve
hired this cab, too.”
“Well, I can pay!” cried Diamond sharply. “Don’t let that worry you,
Charley.”
“That’s the stuff!” declared Madison. “Now will you be good? Come on, I
want that drink. Bring Mr. Merriwell along, Jack. We’ll fill him to the
chin.”
“You’ll have a hard time to do that,” asserted Diamond, as he permitted
Madison to pull him across the sidewalk, at the same time clinging fast
to Frank’s arm.
“Why?” asked the yellow-haired chap. “Is he a tank?”
“No; he’s a total abstainer.”
Herrick was heard to mutter something beneath his breath.
“Total fiddlesticks!” gurgled Madison. “Then he’d better get out of New
York right away. If he doesn’t, they’ll have him on exhibition.”
“Of course he will take one drink with us,” said Herrick persuasively.
“One never hurt anybody, and he’ll consent to take a drink with an old
friend like you, Jack.”
“Tell me if he does!” said Diamond. “It will be soft stuff.”
“Soft stuff is good only for soft persons,” declared the man with the
black mustache, as they entered the hotel and approached the bar. “I
hope he isn’t in that class.”
Merriwell’s dislike for the man was growing, and he had noted with
surprise and dismay that both of these men spoke to the Virginian in a
most familiar manner, addressing him as Jack.
“He’s in bad company,” Merry decided.
They lined up at the polished bar.
“Oh, gimme a highball!” chirped Madison, his silk hat on the back of his
head. “What are you absorbing, gentlemen?”
“I’ll take a little whisky,” said Herrick.
Frank was watching Diamond, and now Jack said to the barkeeper:
“I want a mint julep, Ned; you know how to put ’em together.”
“And our friend Mr. Merriwell,” spoke Herrick, placing a hand on Frank’s
shoulder, “will he have a mixed drink, or will he take his straight,
with me?”
“I told you he didn’t drink!” Diamond somewhat petulantly cried. “What’s
the use to keep asking him, Charley?”
“But I have decided to take a drink this time,” said Frank, causing the
Virginian to nearly collapse. “Barkeeper, I’ll take a gin.”
Frank had decided that Jack Diamond was in danger. He could not
understand how the Virginian happened to be in New York, and in such a
condition. No more could he understand the familiar friendship of
Diamond and his two companions. Jack was not a fellow to pick up friends
anywhere, and get on “first-name terms” with them in short order.
Ordinarily, Merriwell’s influence over Diamond was complete, but now he
had failed in his attempt to take the Southerner from these companions
and carry him away to a place where he could be brought round to reason.
Having failed thus, Merry quickly decided to stay with Jack and see what
was going on. He knew he would be an object of suspicion to Herrick and
Madison unless they fancied he was drinking with them, and in order to
divert their attention he agreed to take a drink.
But Frank had no intention of swallowing a drop of liquor. He had chosen
gin because, in past experiences, he had discovered that, being the
color of water, it was easy to make companions believe the gin had been
taken when, in fact, the water “chaser” was the only thing swallowed.
“Hoo—yee!” whooped Madison, in delight, slapping Diamond on the
shoulder. “There goes your total abstainer, Jack! He’s going to take his
medicine like a little man.”
The Southerner looked at Frank in half-intoxicated reproach.
“Don’t do it, Merry!” he exclaimed huskily. “You’re too good a man to
meddle with booze. Don’t do it!”
“Well, you’re a dandy to be giving advice!” shouted Madison. “Oh, quit
your kidding and corral your mint julep!”
“Please be good enough to quit that, sah!” said Diamond, with a touch of
his original Southern accent. “I am talking to my particular friend, and
I’ll thank you not to interfere, sah.”
“Oh, thunder!” gasped Madison. “All right; didn’t suppose you were so
touchy to-night, Jack, old sport. It’s all right; talk to him all you
want to. I won’t come into the game.”
The Virginian bowed gravely, and again turned to Frank, who had poured
some gin in a glass and received a chaser of water from the barkeeper.
“We are old friends, Merriwell,” said Diamond, still with the same air
of polite intoxication, “and I’d do anything for you. You know it.
You’re the best all-round man in Yale—the best man that ever entered the
college. You have no vices. You are clean from your toes to the tip-ends
of your hair. You’ve never poisoned yourself with tobacco or drink or
high living of any sort. You’ve always taken the very best of care of
your body and your mind. Now, don’t tell me you are going to spoil it
all by making a fool of yourself and drinking gin!”
“That’s right,” muttered Madison, with a chuckle, unable to keep still
longer. “For the love of goodness, drink something besides gin! Have a
highball with me.”
“Please, sah—please!” frowned Jack, with a gentle gesture of his right
hand, turning his eyes toward the irrepressible chap with the yellow
hair.
“Shut up, Billy!” advised Herrick. “Let Jack talk to his friend. Of
course, the man will take a drink just the same after Jack has wasted
his breath, but that’s none of your business.”
Frank felt like hitting the sneering fellow. He was tempted to shove
back the stuff onto the bar, and inform Herrick that he had made a
mistake. Then he told himself that by so doing he might throw away his
chance of learning the real meaning of Diamond’s actions and condition,
and he simply pretended that he did not hear the man’s words.
“You’re a nice fellow to talk to me, Jack!” laughed Frank.
“That’s all right, Merry,” asserted Diamond unsteadily, his fine face
flushed and his eyes gleaming redly. “It’s different with me.”
“I fail to see it. You are a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman.”
“Thank you, Merriwell; I hope, sah, that I am. But my father could take
his medicine, and he always remained a gentleman. It doesn’t make so
much difference about me. The fact is, it doesn’t make any difference
what becomes of me now. I am up against it, and I’m going to play this
streak through to the end.”
More than ever was Frank alarmed, for now he saw that Diamond was in a
desperate mood, and, being in such a condition, the hot-blooded
Virginian would not easily listen to reason.
Merry knew it would do little good to argue with Jack just then, for
argument with a man under the influence of drink is generally a waste of
words and the height of folly.
“I’d like to know why it doesn’t make any difference what happens to
you,” Frank smiled. “It makes a difference to me. You are my friend.”
“True, true!” said Jack, with deep feeling. “And you are mine. That’s
why I do not want to see you take that drink. If you ever get started
fooling with the cursed stuff, Merriwell, you can’t tell where you’ll
stop. I know you’ve got a stiff backbone, but drink has drowned many a
fine man. It would be the first thing to overthrow you, so you hadn’t
better fool with it. Come, now, old chum, make it something soft, and
let it go at that.”
Herrick laughed harshly.
“We’re a long time getting round to that little drink, Jack,” he put in.
“I’m getting awfully dry.”
“Dry!” croaked Madison. “Why, my throat is parched. Come on, Jack, break
away and let’s irrigate.”
“Go ahead, gentlemen, and drink,” said the Southerner. “You annoy me.”
“Drink!” squawked Madison. “Without you? Not if I crack open with
thirst! I’ll never be guilty of it!”
Frank had a hope that he could shame Diamond so that he would stop then
and there.
“Come on!” he cried, taking up a glass in each hand. “We’re with them,
Jack, and I’m with you till morning! Just you go ahead, and see if I
don’t chase you.”
“One last appeal,” insisted Diamond earnestly. “You don’t know where
you’ll stop if you begin it, Merry.”
“No more did you.”
“Well, you see the shape I’m in. Been this way for a week. Just take me
as a horrible example, old man.”
“You seem to be having a good time.”
“All on the surface, my boy.”
“What makes you keep it up?”
“Have to.”
“Why?”
“So I won’t stop to think. I don’t want to think, Merriwell, and I won’t
do anything else the minute I get sober.”
“What has happened? Tell me, Jack.”
“Not now. Good Lord! it drives me to drink! I’ve got to take this stuff,
Merry! I’m afraid I’m getting sober.”
“Here we go!” chirped Madison. “Everybody drink. Here’s happy days.”
Diamond’s hand shook as he lifted his glass. His flushed face showed
lines of care and dissipation. Merriwell’s heart was filled with pity
and sorrow at the spectacle.
“I’ll save him from his own folly!” Frank vowed. “But I must seem to
play into the hands of these fellows, in order to find out just what
they are doing with him.”
Then he dashed off the contents of one of the glasses, which contained
nothing but water, pretended to drink as a “chaser” from the other, but
did not swallow a drop, and so deceived them all.
“Too bad!” Diamond almost sobbed, thinking Frank had taken the gin.
“Suppose it’s all my fault. Been better for you, Merry, if you’d never
known me.”
“Oh, say! don’t talk that stuff! It’s all right! Why, a fellow’s got to
have a time once in his life!”
“That’s the talk!” nodded Herrick, evidently well pleased.
But Diamond shook his head sadly, at the same time pulling from his
pocket a huge roll of bills, stripping off a twenty and flinging it on
the bar.
“This is on me, Jack,” said Madison mildly.
“I’m paying the bills to-night, gentlemen,” asserted the Virginian, with
dignity. “I insist.”
Merry decided that they were perfectly willing that Jack should pay. He
could not help wondering at the amount of money in Diamond’s possession,
but the sight of it gave him a conviction.
“They have seen his roll, and they are looking to bleed him. Now I stick
by him for sure.”
“Come, gentlemen,” urged Herrick; “that cab is still waiting outside.”
“Let it wait, sah,” returned Diamond. “We’re going to have another
drink.”
And have another they did.
------------------------------------------------------------------------