Did I look lonesome?
Well, I wasn't feeling any lonesome, I can tell you--none whatever!" "Perhaps you object to my company ?" drawing back.
Badger knew that this was a piece of acting, and he wanted to crack Agnew on the jaw for it.

But he held himself in check.

Really Badger seemed to be gaining some self-control--a thing that was entirely foreign to him when he first knew Merriwell.

He was enabled to hold himself in by the intense desire he felt to discover if Agnew slipped the "fixed" shell into the box.

That was an important point just then.
"Come along!" the Westerner grunted.