“What chance has he? I don’t see any.”
“Well, if he keeps up the pace in studies that he’s been setting for himself, cuts out for good the idleness and loafing that were responsible for his getting into trouble, shows he isn’t seeking popularity any more and doesn’t care anything about it—I should think then you could begin to respect him again.”
“It would help,” admitted Richard. “Though hard work can’t exactly cancel a dishonorable act.”
“Friendship might help it to,” said David.
Richard pondered, frowning. “I’m not sure that it isn’t my duty to do everything I can to keep him from being elected marshal.”
“If you feel a real call to duty, go to it,” said David with mild irony. “You’re a true son of the Puritans, Dick.”
“You can scoff if you want to. But here you and I have been doing all that we could to get Lester elected first marshal, and now we find that he’s unfit to have the honor. You’ll agree to that, I suppose?”
David hesitated. “I don’t know that I’d say he was unfit.”
“You don’t mean that you’ll still vote for him?”