hance for chevrons next month if you had let cigarettes and
novels alone and taken a little more care to avoid demerit."

"Never mind, old man," said Hodge, as he resumed the cigarette and
brought forth the detective story again.

"You'll be a corporal sure, and that is glory enough for us. Don't
preach. If you should start in on this yarn, you wouldn't give it up
till you finished it."

"And that is exactly why I am not going to start in. I enjoy a good
story as well as you do, but I cannot afford to read novels, now, and
so I refuse to be tempted into looking into any of them."

"This is a hummer," declared Bart, enthusiastically. "It is full of
mystery and murder and all that. Beagle Ben, the detective, is a
corker! That fellow can look a man over and tell what he had for
dinner by the expression around the corners of his mouth. He sees
through a crook as easily as you can look through a plate-glass window.
And the mysteries in this story are enough to give a fellow the
nightmare. I wonder why such mysterious things never happen in real
life?"

"Perhaps they do occasionally."

The way Frank spoke the words caused Bart to turn and look him over
wonderingly.

"Hello!" he said. "What's struck you? You are breathing as if you had
been running, but you're rather pale round the gills."

"I have had an adventure."

"You are always having adventures. You're the luckiest fellow alive."

"This adventure is somewhat out of the usual order," declared Frank.
"It might furnish material for a detective story."

"Whew!" whistled the dark-haired lad. "Now you are making me curious.
Reel it off for us."

Then Frank sat down and told Hodge the full particulars of his
adventure with the mysterious man in black.

A look of wonder and delight grew on Bart's face as he listened, and,
when the account was finished, he slapped his thigh, crying:

"By Jove, Merriwell, this is great! Why, such things do actually
happen, don't they! Why do you suppose that man is so determined to
obtain possession of that ugly old ring? Do you actually believe he is
a collector of rings, with a mania for the quaint and curious?"

"It is possible, but, for some reason, I doubt it."

"So do I."

"He did not seem quite sincere in his manner of telling that story, and
he was altogether too desperate in his determination to obtain the
ring."

"That's right."

"Besides that, he wished to know how it came into my possession, and