“I will, unless someone else can show good reason why he could do the job better than I can.”
“I’m conceited enough to believe that I can do it just as well,” said Evans. “Unless you can show good reason why you can do it better than I can, I demand that you match coins with me to determine who shall go.”
“Where are the coins?”
“Hold on,” interposed Dan Fentress. “You two aren’t going to have a monopoly on this business. I want to come in on it.”
“All right,” said Evans; “you ought to be able to outwit a score of pie-faced boches with those squint eyes o’ yours. But I think we’d better close the nominations now, hadn’t we?”
“Not till I get in on it, if you’ll admit an outsider,” Tim protested eagerly. “I don’t exactly belong to your bunch, for the boches sort o’ took me over as chief cook an’ bottle washer, but I don’t object to being traitor to my new alliance if you don’t.”
“We’ll let you in on it, nobody objecting,” Evans ruled. “But unless somebody speaks up quick, the nominations are closed. One, two, three—they’re closed. Now, how shall we vote? Anybody got a coin to flip?”
Nobody had.
“Let’s settle it among us four candidates,” Phil proposed. “Nobody shall vote for himself. Everybody decide whom he will vote for and as soon as you’re all ready I’ll say ‘one, two,’ and instead of ‘three’ I’ll call out my vote. You do likewise.”
This was agreed upon. Presently all announced that they were ready and Phil began, “One, two—”