try to remember it.

Some young men boast of the stories they know. And all their stories are
of the "shady" sort. It is better to know no stories than to know that
kind. It is better not to be called a good fellow than to win a
reputation by always having a new story of the low sort ready on your
tongue.

There are other and better ways of winning a reputation as a good
fellow. There are stories which are genuinely humorous and funny which
are also clean. No matter how much of a laugh he may raise, any
self-respecting person feels that he has lowered himself by telling a
vulgar story. It is not so if he has told a clean story. He is
satisfied with the laughter he has caused and with himself.

Frank Merriwell was called a good fellow. It was not often that he told
a story, but when he did, it was a good one, and it was clean. He had an
inimitable way of telling anything, and his stories were all the more
effective because they came at rare intervals. He did not cheapen them
by making them common.

And never had anybody heard him tell a story that could prove offensive
to the ears of a lady.

Not that he had not been tempted to do so. Not that he had not heard
such stories. He had been placed in positions where he could not help
hearing them without making himself appear like a thorough cad.

Frank's first attempt to tell a vulgar story had been the lesson that he
needed. He was with a rather gay crowd of boys at the time, and several