"Sit down," invited Hartwick, suddenly rising and offering Mike his chair. "I'll get another. I want to hear just how you came by those eyes."
Hogan sat down at the table and Hartwick brought a chair from a corner.
"We are all anxious to hear how you came by those eyes," declared Harlow.
"Some gent order drinks, and I will tell ye. Never mind," he cried, as he saw them look at each other knowingly, as if they thought he was trying to work them for liquor, "I'll order, myself! Don't you think for a second that I'm broke!"
Then he flung a small roll of bills on the table before them, reached past Harlow, and pressed the button. When the waiter appeared, he said:
"Give these gents anything they want, Pete."
"Wot if they orders champagne?" grinned Pete, winking at the boys.
"Then bring it, dern ye!" snarled Hogan, as he grabbed up the roll of money and thrust it at the waiter. "Take the pay out of that and gimme the change."
Drinks were ordered and quickly brought. Hogan paid for them and gave the waiter a quarter as a tip.
"How about it, Pete?" he asked. "Am I all right?"
"Ye're all right, Mike," declared the waiter, promptly; "and the young gents will find that anything you says sticks."
"Now," said Hogan, "before I begin I want to tell you chaps this: I'm on the make. That is how I happened to get up against this chap Merriwell. I heard that he paid a cool thousand for that horse of his, and I kinder admitted that a boy who could pay that sum for a horse must be in circumstances that would permit him to burn money in an open grate. Such a chap was worth my attention. I know horses from their hoofs to the tips of their ears. There ain't much of anything I don't know about 'em. And I knew Merriwell must be stuck on the horse for which he paid a thousand plunks.
"Well, gents, I'll tell ye my scheme. I kinder thought it would be easy to play the horse doctor, and work Merriwell for a good pot. All that was necessary was to make something ail the horse. Then I went round to the stable where he keeps the critter, after I had first learned the name of one of Merriwell's friends. I wanted to get at the horse, and I knew it wouldn't be easy unless I appeared to be on the inside track with Merriwell. I went round and said I was this friend of Merriwell, and in that way I got into the stall with the horse.