Startled at being overheard, Carpenter and his companion, Shesgren, looked up. They were amazed and confused to see that the man who was speaking to them was Parker, a junior, and known as a big man in his class. He was an athlete, though not a baseball player, football being his sport. Indeed, there was even a chance that he might be captain of the football team the next fall. Danby, the man elected after the last season, had been forced to leave Yale for family reasons, and the election to pick his successor had not yet been held. Parker was one of three candidates. For him to have heard what they said, Carpenter and Shesgren were convinced, would mean a lot of trouble for them.
But, after looking at them contemptuously a minute, Parker smiled.
“I don’t know that I blame you much, at that,” he said. They plucked up at that, surprised as they were to hear him say it. “I must confess that I get rather tired myself sometimes when I hear them chanting the praises of this fellow Phillips. He’s done pretty well, but he’s got an awful lot to do yet before he’ll be entitled to all the honors every one here seems determined to give him. For instance, there’s this baseball captaincy. Every one says he’s sure to be elected—and that’s a bad precedent, and a dangerous one.
“We’ve done well in athletics here for years, but we’ve had the practice of electing seniors to captaincies, and, when it’s worked as well as it has, I don’t see any reason for changing around now and putting a junior in to run a team as important as the baseball nine. Steve Carter’s the man for captain. If Phillips does as well next year as he has this, there’ll be no one to oppose his election in his senior year—and he ought to wait until then.”
“After all,” said Jack Tempest, who had overheard the last few words of what Parker had said, “that’s a matter for the baseball team to decide, isn’t it, Parker? They elect their own captain, and class feeling won’t enter into it. There are only three sophomores on the team, and Jim himself, I know, will vote for Carter, if he runs. Brady and Maxwell will vote for Jim, I suppose, and so will Carter. Jackson is a junior—I don’t know what he’ll do. Gray and Taylor are seniors—so’s Sherman, and some of the others.”
Parker turned and looked at Tempest in a coldly, insolent way that brought the Virginian’s hot blood to his cheeks in a flush of anger.
“I don’t remember saying anything to you, Tempest,” said Parker. “I was talking to two friends of mine here. When we want the benefit of your advice, we’ll be able to ask you for it, you know.”
Tempest was furious. He raised his hand as if he would strike the junior who had insulted him, but his common sense prevailed. He was not afraid of Parker, although the football man, a guard, weighed fifty pounds more than did the slight young Southerner, and was one of the strongest men in Yale as well. But he knew that a brawl there on the campus would do no good, and might annoy Jim Phillips. So, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked off, although Parker’s sneering laugh, which he heard plainly as he walked away, made it almost impossible for him to resist the temptation to return, and, at any cost, have it out with the bully and coward, who had struck at him through his friend.
“These infernal sophomores are getting to think they own the college,” said Parker angrily, utterly unmindful, it seemed, of the fact that it was to two members of the class he insulted that he was speaking. But he knew his men, and that they would not dare to resent anything he might say. “Are you two fellows in earnest about Phillips? Would you like to see him shown up? If you are, come along with me. I’ve got a plan that may prove what sort of a chap he is at bottom.”
Scarcely believing in their good fortune in securing an ally as powerful as Parker, the two treacherous sophomores gladly accepted his invitation.