Oh, those old college songs!  How they linger in the memory!  How the sound of them in after years stirs the blood and quickens the pulse!  And never can other songs seem half so beautiful as those!

It was after two when the party broke up, but it was a night long to be remembered.

CHAPTER XXII.

A surprise for frank.

On the following morning Merriwell arose with a headache.

“The smoke was too much for me last night,” he said.  “It was thick enough to chop in this room.”

“And you don’t know how I wanted to have a whiff with the fellows,” said Harry, dolefully.  “It was awful to see them enjoying cigars and cigarettes and not touch one myself!”

“But you didn’t,” smiled Frank.  “Good boy!  Stick to that just as long as you wish to keep a place in athletics.”

“I don’t know which is the worst, smoking or midnight suppers.”

“Midnight suppers are bad things, and you will observe that I seldom indulge in them.  If I was on one of the regular teams I could not indulge at all.  I’ll not have any part in another affair like that of last night till after the race.  From now till it is over I am going to live right.”

“Well, I’ll do my best to stick with you.  If you see me up to anything improper, just call me down.”

“Agreed.”

There was no time for a cold bath before chapel, although Frank would have given something to indulge in one.  As it was, he dipped his head in cold water, opened the window wide, and filled his lungs with fresh air, then hustled into his clothes and rushed away, with the chapel bell clanging and his temples still throbbing.

The whole forenoon was a drag, but he managed to get through the recitations fairly well.  Over and over he promised himself that he would not indulge in another midnight feast until the time came when such dissipation was not likely to do him any particular harm physically.

At noon as he was crossing the campus he was astonished to see Paul Pierson, a junior and the manager of the regular ball team, stop and bow.  Unless it was Pierson who had pursued him on the previous night, Frank had never spoken a word to the fellow in his life.  And this public recognition of a freshman on the campus by a man like Pierson was almost unprecedented.

“Ah, Mr. Merriwell, I would like to speak with you,” said Pierson in a manner that was not exactly unfriendly.

Frank remembered that the fellow who chased him the night before had promised to see him again, but he had thought at the time that the man did not mean it.  Now he wondered what in the world Pierson could want.

“Yes, sir,” said Merriwell, stopping and bowing respectfully.

“I understand that you are something of a sprinter,” said Pierson as he surveyed the freshman critically.  “A—­ah—­friend of mine told me so.”