DUNTON’S DISCOMFITURE.
Frank did not wait to be attacked. He made a flying leap at Dunton,
caught the fellow with his coat halfway off, and flung him clean across
the bed, so that his head was rammed against the wall with a thud that
seemed to shake the building.
Then he went at Sargent.
Sargent turned to meet him, but did not get round quick enough.
Frank slammed him up against the door so that it nearly burst open.
“Glad you gentlemen called,” he declared, gently. “Make yourselves at
home. I shall do my best to entertain you.”
He had Sargent by the neck, and he thumped the fellow’s head against the
door so hard that the panel was cracked.
“Wow!” cried Dunton’s astonished friend. “I didn’t come up to fight with
you!”
“Oh, you didn’t?”
“No.”
“Why did you come?”
“To see fair play.”
“Was that it?”
“Yes. Ouch! You hurt!”
“Well, you don’t seem to be fighting much,” observed Frank, disgustedly.
“Get in under cover out of the way.”
He caught Sargent by the slack of his trousers and the collar and fired
him under the bed just as Dunton crawled off it.
Sargent went in till nothing but his heels stuck out, and there he lay,
making no effort to retreat, evidently being well satisfied to get out
of the way like that, for it had dawned on him that he and Dunton were
“up against it.”
Dunton was raving mad. He literally frothed at the mouth as he came off
the bed and leaped on the ex-Yale athlete.
“I’ll kill you!” he howled.
“Will you?” inquired Merry, calmly. “I don’t think!”
Dunton tried to get him by the throat. For some moments there was a
terrific struggle, during which a chair and a stand were overturned.
Dunton was nerved by such fury that he made a desperate antagonist for a
time, but he could not hold out against Merriwell.
Seeing he was about to get the worst of it, the fellow tried to get some
kind of weapon out of his pocket.
“Would you!” cried Frank, catching his wrist.
“In a minute!” returned the other.
“You’re pretty bad.”
“You’ll find out!”
Bang! bang! bang!
Somebody was pounding on the door.
“What’s going on in there?” cried a voice. “What are you doing,
Merriwell?”
It was Havener.
“Oh, I am practicing a little,” answered Frank.
“Let me in.”
“The door is locked, and my hands are full.”
“Hands full of what?”
“Man. Got one under the bed, and the other is—going.”
With a twist and a snap, Frank whirled Dunton about, caught him up off
his feet, sent him shooting under the bed by the side of Sargent.
Then he quickly unlocked the door.
“Walk in, Mr. Havener,” he politely invited.
The stage-manager did so, looking around in wonder.
“Where’s the man?” he asked.
“There.”
Frank pointed, and his finger indicated two pairs of feet sticking out
from under the bed.
Havener stared.
“What!” he gasped.
“Came in to do me up,” Merry explained.
“But—but—what are they doing under the bed?”
“By gum!” chuckled the voice of Ephraim Gallup, who was now standing in
the open door. “I guess they’re huntin’ fer him under the bed. Haw! haw!
haw!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Havener, and he was a man who seldom smiled.
One pair of feet began to kick, and the owner struggled to get out from
beneath the bed.
“Come out, both of you,” commanded Havener.
They did so, one at a time, and two more crestfallen, sheepish,
disgusted-looking fellows never showed their faces.
“I didn’t come here to fight,” Sargent hastened to again declare.
Dunton said nothing, for he could find no words to express his feelings.
Ephraim Gallup continued to roar with laughter, and all the noise had
brought several more of the company to the spot, together with other
guests of the hotel.
Dunton ground his teeth together when he realized what a spectacle he
was, and the one look he gave Frank Merriwell was murderous. Then he
made a break for the door.
“Let me out!” he snarled.
“Go it!” cried Ephraim. “I don’t wonder yeou feel like runnin’! By gum!
if I was yeou, I’d feel like findin’ a hole somewhere and crawlin’ inter
it. Them fellers came up here to lick Frank Merriwell in his room,” he
explained, as Sargent hastened after his chum. “Gosh all hemlock! They
couldn’t ’a’ done it if they’d bin ten of ’um, ’stead of two.”
The proprietor came up, and Merriwell apologized for the disturbance.
Havener, however, was forced to pacify the man, which he finally
succeeded in doing, with the assistance of Hawkins, who had found the
soft side of the hotel keeper at an early date.
“Why haven’t you been down to supper, Merriwell?” asked the
stage-manager.
“No time,” answered Merry, shortly. “Studying. I won’t eat till after
the show.”
“Can’t get anything in this hotel at that hour.”
“Then I’ll patronize a lunch cart. Can’t spend time to eat. Those
fellows cut me out of fifteen minutes. Send somebody to tell me when
it’s necessary for me to go to the theater.”
“All right,” promised Havener, as he hustled everybody out of the room.
“I don’t think you’ll be disturbed again.”
Closing the door, Frank picked up the manuscript and went on studying as
if nothing had happened. In a moment he dismissed the encounter from his
mind and gave his entire attention to the lines he was learning.
Frank continued to study till Hans came to tell him that the band was
going to play before the theater, and the company was going over to make
up.
Frank found Havener waiting in the office of the hotel.
“How are you making it?” asked the stage-manager.
“Fairly well,” answered Frank, modestly.
“If you do as well as I hope, you will save us from making a big fizzle
to-night.”
“I shall do my level best.”
They went over to the theater, and Frank immediately sought his dressing
room to make up.
Old Dan Lee was there.
“Cassie told me I’d better help you make up, Merriwell,” said the
veteran actor.
“Thank you, Mr. Lee,” smiled Frank, “but I believe I can do the trick
without assistance.”
“All right, if you say so; but I’ll stay and put on the finishing
touches.”
“I haven’t a make-up box. Shall have to borrow from somebody.”
“Here,” said Lee, “use what you want out of this one. It belonged to
that fellow Storms, but he will do his making up in jail for some time.”
Frank began work with the grease paint, and then Dunton came in. He
stopped and glared at Merry, astonished to find him in that dressing
room.
“What the——” he began, and then stopped short.
A moment later Dunton made a dive forward and caught up the make-up box
Frank was using.
“Well, talk about crust!” he snarled; “this beats! Drop that stick of
grease paint!”
Frank turned and surveyed him, quietly asking:
“Why?”
“It doesn’t belong to you.”
“Does it belong to you?”
“Yes.”
“How’s that?”
“Because it does.”
“It was Storms’.”
“What of that?”
“He left it.”
“He gave it to me.”
“That’s a lie!” declared Dan Lee, who had been watching everything.
“Storms didn’t give it to anybody, but you took it. Before that you
bummed make-up off everybody else, because you spent all your money for
drinks, and didn’t have so much as a piece of coco-butter of your own.”
“Oh, dry up!” snapped Dunton. “You’re always poking your nose into
something that doesn’t concern you.”
“This business concerns me, for I told Merriwell to use that stuff, and
by the gods! he’s going to use it.”
“He shan’t!”
“He shall!”
The old actor slammed the dressing-room door and placed his back against
it.
“You’re not going to take that box out of here,” he declared. “Put it
down till Merriwell is through with it.”
“I won’t!”
“Then Merriwell will take it away from you.”
“Let him try it!”
“Go ahead, Merriwell,” directed old Dan; “and thump him if he don’t give
it up instanter.”
Frank started toward Dunton, who backed away, holding onto the box.
“Keep off!” grated the fellow.
“Give it up!” commanded Frank.
Dunton backed against the partition, and Frank confronted him. The
fellow remembered how he had been handled not very long before in
Merriwell’s room, and he scarcely wished to fall into Frank’s hands
again.
“You can’t have it!” he declared, weakening somewhat.
“Give it up!” repeated Merry, sternly.
Then, like a flash, Dunton lifted the box and hurled it at the head of
the youth he hated.
Frank dodged, and the box flew past his head, striking the partition and
falling to the floor, where its contents, powder, paint, puffs, and so
forth, flew in every direction.
Dan Lee uttered an exclamation of anger.
“Now thump him, Merriwell—thump him hard!” cried the old actor. “He
deserves it!”
“No,” said Frank, scornfully. “I should be ashamed to do it. He is too
contemptible.”
Then he turned and stooped to gather up whatever he could of the
contents of the box.
Dunton fancied he saw his opportunity.
“Look out!”
The warning came from old Dan just as Dunton leaped onto Frank’s
shoulders.
Merry was crushed to the floor, but Dan Lee rushed forward and caught
Dunton by the collar, dragging him off his intended victim.
Up to his feet shot Frank, and he caught hold of his enemy.
“Open the door!”
Lee hastened to do so, and Merriwell lost no time in throwing Dunton out
of the dressing room, being unable to resist the temptation to give him
a boost with his toe.
The fellow was sent sprawling, his undignified exit being witnessed by
several members of the company.
Frank turned back and gathered up such of the contents of the box as he
could, and then resumed the work of making up.
He did it rapidly, closely watched by old Dan. In a very short time
Frank had finished.
“There,” he said, turning to be inspected, “now I will listen to your
suggestions, Mr. Lee.”
“Ain’t got any to make,” said old Dan. “You’re all right; but where’d
you learn to make up?”
“Oh, I’ve watched the others.”
“Watching wouldn’t teach you to put it on like that without making a
single mistake. You’ve had some practice. Where?”
“A little at college.”
“College?”
“Yes.”
“What college?”
“Yale.”
“Did you go to Yale?”
“I did.”
“Never knew it before. Why didn’t you say something about it?”
“Why should I?”
“Oh, I don’t know, but you never say anything about yourself.”
“I don’t think much of fellows who are forever telling something about
themselves.”
“No more do I,” nodded old Dan. “You’re all right. But how did you learn
to make up at college?”
“We had amateur theatricals.”
“Yes, but——”
“Of course we had to make up.”
“But you were greenies.”
“Sure.”
“How could you learn to do it like an expert?”
“Got a book of instructions and studied it till I knew it by heart.”
“Huah! Don’t take much stock in such books. Fellow’s got to learn by
experience.”
“I got some experience.”
“How?”
“Well, the others found I knew something about it, and I had to make up
the whole company. In that way I got a chance to try my hand at all
sorts of characters, for some of the fellows impersonated old men, some
brigands, some girls, and so forth.”
“Well,” said old Dan, “I rather think you have a way of catching onto
things in a hurry. You’re all right. What are you going to do now?”
“Study till it is time to go on.”
Frank was to appear in the first act in ordinary street clothes, so his
costume for that act gave him no trouble.
He took the manuscript and sat down in a corner, where he went at it
again, and he did not even hear the band when it played its first piece
in the theater. He was aroused by Havener, who came in and said:
“I’ll have to take that manuscript now, Merriwell. The curtain goes up
in two minutes.”
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