Tip Top Weekly No. 139: Frank Merriwell's Father — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

20 TIP TOP WEEKLY. “It is my play.” “Yours? You wrote it?” “Yes.” “T will come.” Then Mr. Phenix left the office. As he passed through the door he was heard to mutter: “A son any father might be proud to call his own!” CHAPTER VI. FACING A “FROST.” “Well, you did have nerve to talk to him like that!” exclaimed one of those who had listened to all that had passed. “Why, I be- lieve the man is daffy! Surely he is not right in his upper story.” Then they fell to discussing in an animated and rather excited manner the strange man from Arizona. Frank thrust the half-burned bill into his pocket and finished writing the names of the company on the register. The ladies were in the parlor, while Gallup, Havener and Dan- gerford were attending to the getting of the special scenery into the theater. The other members of the company were around the hotel, but it happened that none of them were present in the office at the time of the strange interview between Merriwell and Mr. Phenix. The clerk assigned the rooms, and Merry immediately went up to his, after speaking to the ladies ‘and telling them they would be shown to their rooms by a boy. Alone in the room, Frank paced up and down like a caged tiger, an expression of per- plexity and study on his handsome face. ‘ His brows were knitted in deep furrows and his hands were clenched. Something within him was stirring as if a forgotton chord had been touched. “Where have we met?” he muttered. “When did we meet? 2, “By the Blood of Bruce, [t’s Not ram Gawked McFatrick. “True Blue No. 30. , MMIC SOOT Ks I know I have seen © him before! Something tells me that. There was something familiar in his voice! There was something familiar in ‘this gestures and movements! But his face—it is strange to me. That marble face seemed there before him. He could see it almost as plainly as hé had seen it as he stood and talked with the mys- terious man who claimed he had come back into the world after being out of it many years. Something set Frank to thinking of his boyhood. It seemed that something about this strange man brought those thoughts to him. He remembered his sweet-faced mother, never strong, ever kind and loving. All through the years the memory of her had been the saddest and sweetest of all things to him. He thought of the days when he had stood by her knee, and she had told him of his father, who was far away somewhere in the great West, seeking to aia a fortune amid the mines. His father “Merciful heavens!” An electric shock ran over Frank Merri- well, He paused in the middle of the floor as if turned to stone; he stood there with a look of unutterable amazement on shis face. Finally, his lips moved, and he ‘hoarsely mut- tered: “That man is my father!” The conviction had come to him at last. He remembered how strangely he had felt as he stood before the unknown from Ari- zona. He remembered how he had felt that 39 the man was known to him. He remem- — bered that there had ‘been something familiar in the man’s face, gestures and voice. And, above all, he remembered that when the man - had spoken commandingly the had felt that : he must obey. “That man is my father!” co (CO