.

"I feel I ought to tell you," he said, "that I've made up my mind, if
I'm asked, to join a club. Anything that has so much to offer can't be
as bad as you think."

Without answering Allen flushed and walked off angrily.

It was the next day that the parties gathered on the top floor of
Dickinson Hall for the election. George went as an amused spectator. He
had played the game on the level and had destroyed his own chances, but
he was afraid he had destroyed Goodhue's, too, or Goodhue had destroyed
his own by insisting on taking George into the club. That was a
sacrifice George wanted to repay.

Wandel, as usual, was undisturbed. Allen's angular figure wandered
restlessly among the groups. George had no idea what the line-up was.

George sensed weakness in the fact that, when the nominations were
opened, Wandel was the first on his feet. He recited Goodhue's virtues
as an athlete and a scholar. Like a real political orator at a
convention he examined his record as president the previous year. He
placed him in nomination amid a satisfactory applause. Now what was
coming? Who did Allen have?

When he arose Allen wore an air of getting through with a formality. He
insisted on the fact that his candidate was working his way through
college, and would always be near the top scholastically. He represented
a section of the class that the more fortunate of the students were
prone to forget. And so on--a condensation of his complaints to George.
The room filled with suspense, which broke into loud laughter when Allen
named a man of absolutely no importance or colour, who couldn't poll
more than the votes of his personal friends. A trick, George guessed it,
and everyone else. But Wandel was quickly moving that the nominations be
closed. Allen glanced around with a worried, expectant air. Then George
saw that Rogers was up--a flushed, nervous figure--and had got the
floor. He spoke rapidly, nearly unintelligibly.

"My candidate doesn't need any introduction," he recited. "All factions
can unite on him--the man that smashed the Yale and Harvard Freshmen.
The man who is going to smash the Yale and Harvard varsities this
year--George Morton!"

A cheer burst out, loud, from the heart. George saw that it came from
both sides. The poor men had been stampeded, too.

Goodhue was on his feet, his arms upraised, demanding recognition.
Suddenly George realized what this meant to Goodhue, and temper replaced
his amazement. He spr