Frank Merriwell’s Athletes

“Say, boys, just listen to that racket!”
It was Jack Diamond who spoke, and he addressed Frank Merriwell and several others of his friends.
“It is certainly awful,” came from Harry Rattleton, one of the boys.
“I can’t stand much of this,” put in Bruce Browning. “It is enough to drive one crazy.”
The boys had just entered the outer portals of a Chinese theatre, located in Chinatown, the Celestial portion of San Francisco. There was a great crowd, and it was only with difficulty that they made their way along the narrow and gloomy passages leading to the theatre proper.
Frank Merriwell and his chums from Yale College had filled in their summer vacation by a trip on bicycles from New York to San Francisco. They had had numerous adventures, but had come out “right side up with care,” as Frank put it.
The party was composed of Frank Merriwell, Harry Rattleton, a former roommate at Yale; Jack Diamond, from Virginia; Bruce Browning, fat, lazy and good-natured; and Toots, a colored boy from the Merriwell homestead.
On reaching California, Frank had fallen in with Bart Hodge, a schoolmate of years gone by, when Frank had attended Fardale Military Academy. Bart had been in serious trouble, and it was Frank who helped him out of it. For some time Hodge had found it best to “keep shady,” and his troubles were not yet a thing of the past.
As the boys walked farther into the entrance of the Chinese theatre, a clanging medley of the most horrible sounds came up from the passage that lay at the foot of a steep flight of stairs.
Frank Merriwell laughed.
“That is music, old fellow!” he said.
Then came another burst of sounds, more horrible than the first, if possible. There was a banging of brass, a clanging of gongs, a roaring of drums, and a wild shrieking and wailing as of ten thousand fiddles cut of tune.
Jack jabbed his fingers into his ears and actually turned pale.
“Music!” he gasped—“that music? That is enough to drive any man crazy! It is the most frightful thing I ever heard. Music! You are joking, Merriwell!”
“Not a bit of it,” declared Frank. “Aren’t we on our way to witness a play in a Chinese theatre?”
“Well, I supposed so, but it strikes me now that this is one of your jokes. You have put up a job on me. You are trying to horse me.”
“Nothing of the sort, my dear boy.”