CHAPTER XIV.

WALTER CLYDE'S STORY.

Barney Mulloy had been holding on to keep from shouting with laughter,
and now he exploded.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he roared. "Pwhat do yez think av thot, profissor? Thot
wur th' narrowest escape ivver hearrud av, ur Oi'm a loier!"

"Send for the undertaker!" came in a hollow groan from the lips of the
professor.

"You do not seem to feel well?" said Frank, hastening to the man's
assistance. "What is the trouble?"

"If I die of heart failure you will be responsible!" fiercely grated
Scotch.

"Doie!" cried Barney. "Whoy, ye'll live ter pick daisies on yer own
grave, profissor."

"This is terrible!" faintly rumbled the little man, as he regained his
chair, and began to mop cold perspiration from his face with a
handkerchief.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," cried Frank.

The door opened, and a boy about seventeen years of age entered the
room. He was a slender, delicate-appearing fellow, but he had a good
face and steady eyes.

"Hurrah!" cried Frank. "Here is my preserver! Professor Scotch, permit
me to introduce you to Mr. Walter Clyde."

The professor held out a limp hand to the boy, saying:

"Excuse me if I do not rise. Frank just robbed me of strength by telling
how you saved his life by derailing an express train and killing forty
passengers."

Clyde was quick to catch on. A faint look of astonishment was followed
by a smile, and he said:

"Mr. Merriwell is mistaken."

"Ha!" cried the professor. "Then you denounce the whole story as false?"

"I said Mr. Merriwell was mistaken--but thirty-nine passengers were
killed," said the newcomer, who had caught the end of Frank's yarn.

The professor came near having a fit, and Barney Mulloy held onto his
sides, convulsed with merriment.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Clyde," said Frank. "I may have stretched the
yarn a trifle."

"Just a trifle!" muttered the professor.

"If I had used giant-powder instead of dynamite in blowing up the
track," said Clyde, "it is possible there might have been a smaller loss
of life."

"But you did not blow up the track at all," hastily put in Frank. "You
yanked the train off the rails with a lasso."

"So I did! I was thinking of another case. In this instance, if I had
not stood so far from the railroad----"

"But you were on the pilot of the engine."

"Was I? So I was. Excuse me if I do not attempt any further
explanations."

Then the three boys laughed heartily