The next morning—it was the day for election of a football captain—Roger found Pete and Jack Sumner in the cloak-room talking earnestly together. “I want to ask a favor of you fellows,” he began, as soon as he caught sight of them. “Everybody out at Adams’s has invitations to the Fridays, except Dunn. He is awfully cut up about it.”
“I can’t help it,” said Talbot. “It isn’t my fault if he doesn’t deserve any.”
“He’s no worse than Snobson and Newgeld,” insisted Roger. “They both got in.”
“Not with my help,” retorted Talbot. “What are you bothering about it for? He wouldn’t do it for you.”
“I don’t care whether he would or not. It just isn’t a fair deal to leave him out.” Roger turned to Sumner. “There’s no use talking to Pete; he’s nothing but a savage. You’ll get it for him, Jack, won’t you? You can work your mother for it. Think what it would be yourself to be left out of a thing when all the others are in!”
“Think what it would be to be Dunn,” said Pete; “that’s a much more horrible thought.”
But Sumner was a friendly soul. “If you’re really set on it, I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I shouldn’t want him to commit suicide out at Adams’s!”
Sumner’s words were exactly those which Ben Tracy had used to Dunn the evening before, but his deeds, as will appear later, were wholly different.
Before the football meeting, Talbot suggested that Horr deserved the captaincy, and would perhaps make as good a captain as any one else. Roger assented readily, and cast his vote in accordance with Pete’s suggestion. With Harrison, Eaton, Talbot, Sumner, and other boys of the first class out, there was left little room for choice. He had not thought of himself as a possible candidate. When the votes were counted, and the announcement was made that Horr had eight votes, Hardie four, with one each for McDowell and Ben Tracy, Roger felt grateful that four fellows had thought so well of him as to give him the compliment of their votes, but it did not occur to him either to question the loyalty of friends or to wonder why Horr should be preferred before him.
A day or two later Dunn came to the dinner-table beaming with joy, and slapped Ben Tracy hard on the shoulder.