It was on the subject of this Mulcahy that Archer and Peck came to their first open disagreement. They naturally talked the game over that evening—Sam with frank elation, Peck in a spirit of good-natured forgiveness. When Mulcahy’s name was mentioned, Peck’s attitude changed instantly.
“He’s a mucker!” he said, with contemptuous curtness.
“Why?” demanded Archer.
“Because he is,” answered Peck. “Anybody with half an eye can see it. He held Wildes twice to-day.”
Sam smiled wisely. “If everybody is a mucker who held in to-day’s game, Mulcahy isn’t the only fellow in the class. Putnam tripped Ames deliberately. I saw it myself.”
“It was probably a knee tackle that slipped down.”
“No, he stuck out his foot and Ames fell over it.”
“Well, that’s just because he doesn’t know the game. No one who is acquainted with Harry Putnam would charge him with dirty play. If he did that, it was because he didn’t know any better, or forgot himself.”
“But if Mulcahy did the same thing, it proves he’s a mucker!”
Sam was quite satisfied with this rejoinder. If Duncan Peck had any sense at all, he must recognize the absurdity of his prejudice. Sam, at the age of seventeen, with several generations of locally honored ancestors behind him, had become, since his arrival at Seaton, an ardent democrat. He believed firmly that a boy was as good as his mind and character made him, without regard to the clothes on his back or the money in his pocket or the social position of his nearest relatives. Rebelling instinctively at the pretensions of certain fellows whose fathers had “struck it rich,” and whose money gave them a kind of importance, he was disposed to see in the poorer fellows who were carrying the burden of their future on their own unaided shoulders, examples of a sturdy, manly independence wholly admirable.