“We’ll pay you for it,” began Dunn, with eagerness; but Wilmot, who perceived instantly that an evil interpretation might be given to this transaction, checked his colleague.
“No, we couldn’t do that, of course. It wouldn’t look right. But if you’d give us a statement denying that we got the Newbury signals from you, we should be very thankful for it.”
“I’m not giving statements. Anybody who knows Jake Callahan knows he wouldn’t sell signals. Anybody who says he did, lies!”
While speaking these words, Callahan had finished his descent of the stairs and opened the outer door. Wilmot said good night and went forth, dragging after him Dunn, who seemed on the point of raising again the question of the conversation which he had held with Callahan at the field.
“But he did offer the signals just the same!” Dunn broke out, after they had walked in silence a hundred yards down the street.
“What difference does it make?” answered Wilmot, wearily. “He’s no good to us, anyway.”
Yards was no more successful with his communication to the newspapers. The Mail hid it away in the bottom corner of the market page, where Yards himself had difficulty in discovering it. The Trumpeter sandwiched it in between a letter on Esperanto and another from an opponent of the battle-ship programme. As few who read the sports pages know of the existence of the correspondence column, and no one who reads the letters cares anything about sports, Yards’s chance of undoing the impression made by President John’s friends was about one in a thousand.
CHAPTER XII
PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS
Talbot and Sumner were the Westcott members of the general committee which was to consider the protest of the Newbury captain. They did not lack advice as to what to say and what not to say, nor original suggestions concerning methods of influencing the Trowbridge vote, which, as everybody understood, must really decide the matter. Mr. Westcott was the only counsellor to whom they gave heed, and his directions they determined to follow to the best of their ability. They were to avoid all display of feeling, keep their tempers under absolute control, tell their story calmly without acrimony, and throw themselves unreservedly upon the sense of fairness of the committee. Such a course was especially difficult for Talbot, whose vehemence tolerated no trifling or evasion, and whose frankness verged on discourtesy. He felt his own unfitness for the task before him, even while he longed to be brought face to face with the traducers of his school.