"Do you know that Boggs has a girl cousin in Palo Alto? He has worked her to whoop it up for him down there."
"His literary society will go for him all right. They are tired of the way Castleton and Higgins have been waiting for the job to drop down like a ripe plum. Those two marks have worked the thing too long."
"Jimmy, you don't mean that Boggs has any chance?"
"Not a ghost. But we don't have to work up the whole thing; there'll be enough to make a decent showing and lend an air of truth to that telegram of ours. What have you done?"
"Got the Rhos, anyway. We won't vote for anyone as a frat; the fellows hate Castleton on account of that Annual-board election last Christmas, and Higgins has thrown mud at us that we know of. I've about signed them all, except Duncan. Bob knew Higgins' wife's cousin in some dark corner of the country. Say, it's funny how tired people in general are getting of Higgins and Castleton and their gang politics. At Palo Alto yesterday I heard a crowd talking about it. 'Down with organized politics,' they said, and one of them who works in the laboratory with Boggsie said he was going to vote for modest merit."
"Keep it going, Pellams, it won't hurt. Soothe his feelings beautifully after the banquet. I have it all fixed up to get him off the campus."
Higgins' stock went down wonderfully in the next few days. Higgins, said the Castleton men, had pulled wires and worked combinations ever since he had been in the University. It hurts a College politician to have it known that he has been in politics. They pointed to his rather doubtful record as a member of the Daily Palo Alto board. The sins of his Freshman days rose up against him when they touched on the fact that he had been elected class-president on a barb ticket, and had immediately gone over to the enemy in a fraternity house. Finally, to fill his cup a Freshman, who had withstood fraternity blandishments for a year, glided through the hands of the Gamma Chi Taus, who fully believed they had him, and appeared on the very Sunday preceding election in all the glory of Higgins' frat pin. It was a bad slip; right there it cost fifteen Gamma Chi votes with a large girl following.
"It isn't the swell girls that count for numbers, anyway," reflected the Higgins' supporters, wisely, and they turned to the cultivation of the dig girl who trails up the cinder paths mornings at eight, and who lives in the library during football practice. But the girl cousin of Boggs had been there to good purpose when they turned in that direction, and Roble only showed Castleton still ahead. Then a not over-scrupulous Junior in Higgins' trail started a story on Castleton, a tale calculated to put him in the same category, so far as being "bad" was concerned. Wednesday evening the anecdote reached Roble; a girl who had a brother heard it spreading at dinner, and by noon next day half the girls in Roble had their opinion of a crowd that would start such a malicious libel on Mr. Castleton "just to get votes." The Encina politicians did not know Roble girls for nothing.
So it happened on Thursday that Pellams clumped breathlessly into Jimmy's room with a still wet copy of the Daily and tragically pointed to the notice: "Withdrawal: I hereby withdraw from my candidacy for Student-Body presidency in favor of Lorenzo Boggs. Andrew Higgins."
"Ye gods," gasped the Sophomore, "he can't win, Pellams, he can't! Castleton gets it sure. For heaven's sake, don't put the gang on to this until after to-morrow, though. I wouldn't have the double-cross worked on us for a cool ten credits."