"I've got private knowledge," said Acton, with a filthy lie, "that I won't get 'em in any case, so I shall not try."
Dick was considerably upset by this, and Acton's sudden stoppage of practice after an intense beginning made his lie seem a good imitation of truth, and gave Worcester food for bitter thoughts against Phil. Acton worked "the-no-good-to-try" dodge carefully and artistically; he never actually said his lie openly, or Phil would have nailed it to the counter, but, like a second Iago, he dropped little barbed insinuations here, little double-edged sayings there, until Biffenites to a man believed there would be a repetition of the "footer" cap over again, and the school generally drifted back to aloofness as far as Phil was concerned.
Acton laid himself out to be excessively friendly with the monitors, and just as he entered into their good graces, Phil drifted out of them—in fact, to be friendly with Acton was the same thing as being cool towards Bourne. Phil made splendid scores Saturday after Saturday, but the enthusiasm which his fine play should have called out was wanting.
"Why don't you cheer your captain, Tom?" I overheard a father say to his young hopeful.
"No fear!" said the frenzied Biffenite. "Bourne is a beast!"
In fact, the only one who seemed to derive any pleasure from Bourne's prowess in the field was Acton himself. He used to sit near the flag-staff, and when Phil made his splendid late cut, whose applause was so generous as his? whose joy so great? Acton's manoeuvres were on the highest artistic levels, I can assure you, and in the eyes of the fellows generally, his was a case of persecuted forgiving virtue. Acton, too, kept in old Corker's good books, and his achievements in the way of classics made the old master beam upon him with his keen blue eye.
I saw with dismay how persistently unpopular Phil remained, and I heard the charms of Acton sung daily by monitor after monitor, until I saw that Acton had captured the whole body bar Phil's own staunch friends, Baines, Roberts, and Vercoe. And then it dawned upon me that Acton was making a bid for the captaincy himself, and when I had convinced myself that this was his object, I felt angrier than I can remember. I thereupon wrote to Aspinall, gave him a full, true, and particular account of Acton's campaign against Phil, and asked him to release me—and Phil—from our promise of secrecy regarding the football-match accident. His reply comforted me, and I knew that, come what might, I had a thunderbolt in my pocket in Aspinall's letter, which could knock Acton off the Captain's chair if he tried for that blissful seat.
I told him so, to save trouble later on, and he heard me out with a far from pretty sneer, which, however, did not quite conceal his chagrin. But though I made sure of his being out of the hunt, I could not make sure of Phil being elected, and in a short time Mivart was mentioned casually as the likeliest fellow to take my place. I have nothing whatever to say against Mivart; he was a good fellow, but he was not quite up to Phil's level.
Phil knew of these subterranean workings of his enemy, but he was too proud a fellow to try and make any headway against the mining.
"If they elect Mivart they will elect a good man, that is all, though I'd give a lot, old man, to take your place."