“That isn’t so,” snapped Duncan. “I don’t care anything about money, but I hate a mucker whether he’s rich or poor.”
“Mulcahy isn’t a mucker. My opinion on that point is worth more than yours, for I know him better than you do. He’s going home with me over next Sunday. That shows what I think of him.”
Archer spoke with six feet of dignity and the gravity of a judge handing down a decision, but Peck was totally unimpressed. “I hope he won’t steal the silver,” he said with an exasperating twinkle,—“the old silver!”
Sam blushed, and cursed himself that he had ever been fool enough to tell Peck anything. And while he blushed and sought vainly for a crushing reply, Peck went whistling off to his bedroom, disposed to think rather better of his room-mate after all. If you believe in your friends, it’s your business to stand up for them—until you find them out.
CHAPTER XI
A REVELATION OF CHARACTER
There was no danger of lack of quorum at the election of the Laurel Leaf. Every faithful wheelhorse, every indifferent who had joined “to please the folks at home,” every intermittently interested member hastened to the society rooms with ballot in his hand and zeal in his heart. The tide set hard against the champion of democracy. Underwood was elected by a vote representing two-thirds of the society.
Greatly chagrined and deeply sympathizing with his defeated friend, Sam took Mulcahy home to 7 Hale to console him. Peck, who happened to be in, greeted them coldly, and withdrew in such marked haste that Sam, fearful lest Mulcahy should resent the intended slight, hastily pushed his best chair forward and invited his guest cordially to sit down. Mulcahy, however, showed himself in no wise sensitive. He settled into the comfortable chair and composedly lit a cigarette, less like a young reformer who had suffered a great disappointment, than a shrewd old philosopher to whom a single defeat was but one of the little annoyances of life, to be smiled over and forgotten.
“When are you going to begin to smoke?” he asked, as Sam drew his chair to the fireplace beside him.
“Not for a long time,” answered Sam, “perhaps never.”