Tip Top Weekly No. 139: Frank Merriwell's Father — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

g TIP TOP WEEELY. “Why, I sung and played the trombone, but that was diffrunt from goin’ about an’ tryin’ to act.” “Don’t try to act, Ephraim. Forget you are acting, and just appear natural. You'll get along all right.” “Frank, hain’t there any way aout of this?” “No way out of it, unless you refuse to go on, and leave me in the soup. Everything depends on you to-night.” Ephraim got up and placed a big hand on Merry’s shoulder. “Then I’ll do it, b’gosh! if it kills me!” he declared. “I wouldn’t do it fer anybody else in the world, but Pll do it fer yeou.” “Thank you, Ephraim. Be sure I appre- ciate it, and I will return the favor if I get a chance.” “‘Naow don’t go to talkin’ that way! Yeou returned it before it was done for ye. Wasn't yeou my friend at Fardale! Didn’t yeou stand by me when they tried to haze the stuf- fin’ aout of me jest because I was a greenhorn from the farm! Yeou fit fer me in them days, an’ I’m reddy to fight an’ die fer yeou now!” “You are a true friend, Ephraim. You do not forget.” | Frank showed his feeling in his voice and face. a “IT don’t believe any of your old friends will -ever fergit ye,” declared the Vermonter. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” answered Merry, a trifle despondently. “I am separ- ated from them, and I am poor now.” ‘Look here, Frank Merriwell!” cried the country youth; “don’t yeou ever git no no- tion inter yeour head that your friends was the kind that liked ye fer your money! If yeou do, yeou’ll fool yerseli—bad! Yeou _ didn’t make friends that way. Yeou made ‘em fer yerself, an’ I'll bet they are jest as much yeour friends naow as they ever was.” What were the Two Keepsakes Clif Gave in Exchange for One? True Blue No. “Well, perhaps so. I haven't heard from any of them in so long that I——” “Whose fault is 1t?” “What?” “T say, Whose fault is it?” “Why, I 7 ; “Have yeou let ’em know where ye be?” “No, for I id | “Then haow in thunder do yeou expect to hear from ’em? Haow kin they write to yeou if they don’t know where to write? Look here, Frank Merriwell, I’m yeour friend, an’ I don’t like to say anything | ag’inst ye, but there is one thing I must say.” “Let it come,” smiled Merry, meekly. “T don’t think yeou have treated yeour old friends at college right in not writin’ to them and lettin’ them know anything abaout ye. There ye have it, by gum! straight from the shoulder. It’s ten to one they’re sayin’ *mongst themselves that they’re disapp’inted in ye, as they didn’t think ye’d fergit ’em an’ . go back on ’em so quick. They’re blamin’ yeou.” Frank was serious now. “TI never thought of that,” he confessed. “You may be right, Ephraim—you may be right.” | For a long time Ephraim had felt like speaking out.about this, and now, pleased by the progress he had made, he kept on: “Of course I’m right abaout it. An’ yeou don’t want them thinkin’ you’d fergit them Some of them fellers was reddy to do anything fer yeou. They would hev fit fer yeou to the last gasp.” “You see it’s thisaway,” said Frank, feeling that he must justify himself in Gallup’s eyes. “When I was down in the world—when I was nothing but an engine wiper, or a fire- man, I did not feel like writing to them. I thought I would wait till I had crept farther up. And now I have waited so long———” SO soor. cCOmmic Be o SS (CO) An