“Just at this point I’ll have to go back a little bit and tell you this fact: One of the cadets who was runner-up with Gates was a class captain named George Long. Long was a fine young man, with a splendid career before him, and he tried hard but was defeated by Gates. After his defeat he became entirely different from his usual self, turned quiet and moody and was seen to talk to Gates privately many times, at which times Gates seemed to say no, as though Long was making him some dishonorable proposition. Even when Gates won the scholarship for the school he was not happy and refused to congratulate him at all. We all put it down to jealousy and a bad school spirit, a thing which was hard to believe, for Long was always a gentleman, but that was his attitude. I suppose that he wanted to win that scholarship himself, as it was his last year in Woodcrest, and it was certain that some college, hearing of his success, would have awarded him a scholarship, which is just what they did to Gates, eventually.
“The senior Mr. Gates had turned the cup over to me and had asked me to present it to his son, as that would look better than it would for him to give it, but I wanted one of the student body to present it, as a mark of honor from the cadet corps. But if I did that Long would have to be the one to present it, as he was senior class captain and also captain of the infantry, and I didn’t know how he would feel about it. So I asked him and he said that there was nothing wrong between Gates and himself and that he would gladly present the cup for the student body.
“I therefore turned the cup over to Cadet Captain Long on the night before the general assembly and he took it to his room. When the next day came all of the cadets assembled in the auditorium and there were guests of the school and representatives of the press in the room. But Captain Long was missing and I could not understand the circumstances. I began the exercises, hoping that he would come, but he did not and before long I was at the point where Arthur Gates was to have been presented with the cup.
“I immediately sent a cadet in search of Long, and the messenger found him in his room, frantically going through every drawer and corner of the room. The cup had been stolen, he declared, sometime in the morning. I had to go up there myself, to find him half-distracted, turning everything inside out in his quest for the cup. It was not found, and I was forced to go back to the auditorium and explain the theft of the cup. The place was in an uproar and Melvin Gates was furious, but all we could do was to make young Gates stand up and honor him that way. There was simply no cup to be found and that was all there was to it.
“Afterward I had my hands full. The senior Gates wanted to arrest Long, believing him a thief, but although I didn’t believe he was I couldn’t understand what had happened to that cup. Gates himself, that is, Arthur Gates, had been in Long’s room on the night before and had seen the cup on Long’s dresser, and it had been there when Long went to bed and when he got up in the morning. It was after chapel that he had first noticed that it was gone, and he had hunted around for it without saying anything to anyone about it. Long had no roommate, so there was no suspicion there. I thought myself that he might have hidden the cup for a joke or even in a mean spirit, but he insisted that he had not done so.
“The newspapers rapped the cadet ‘honor’ severely and it was no easy task to remain patient under it all. Long did not resign or do anything foolish, he finished out the year, but under a distinct cloud. Arthur Gates took the loss of his cup calmly, continued to be Long’s friend, and even made a fine speech about it all in assembly. The elder Gates was finally pacified and things died down, but search as we might, we never did find that cup.
“As I have said, Long finished out the year and graduated, but it was a hard job. You know it is the custom to clap when a senior goes up and receives his diploma, but when the cadet captain of the entire school went up there was only a silence, a brutal, condemning silence. I saw his face redden and harden as I gave him his diploma, and I pressed his hand hard, but he simply dropped mine and went back to his seat with his head held high. That looks as though he was not guilty and I’d like to think so, but the fact remains that everything is dead against Mr. Long. He had never been gracious about Gates’ victory over him and never in the least bit generous in any way about it all, and no one could blame the cadets for feeling the way they did. I was severely scored by the papers for not dismissing him from school for neglect of duty if for no other cause, but I felt that would do no good and so I never went to such a limit. I will confess that I hoped and hoped that the cup would turn up some day and we’d find out it was just some prank or mistake, but it never did.
“We have had alumni meetings each year and Long never comes to any of them. I have purposely written to him more than once, although I don’t know if that is quite wise, for the old graduates might turn the cold shoulder to him when they met him. But I wanted to see if he would come and face them in spite of it all, but he evidently does not want to do so. Gates doesn’t come very often, in fact there are some fellows who have never returned to visit the old school once they left it, but that much is to be expected.
“Well, that’s the story of the 1933 class trophy, boys. We have always called it that because both Gates and Long belonged to the senior class of 1933 and that class represented the whole school. It isn’t a pretty story and I’m sorry that it ever happened. I guess we can count that trophy out and you may cross it off your list.”
The colonel sighed as he concluded and the boys sat for a moment in silence. The honor and courage of his boys was a live issue with the colonel and it hurt him to think that any of them should not be worthy. Even though it had happened a number of years ago it was always a fresh hurt to him, and they suspected that he had always had an affection for Long.