“Well, take in our names, will you? Mine and my cousins’.”
“I should be glad to oblige you, but I can’t do it.”
“You can’t do it?” said Tom, who was angry in an instant. “Why not, I’d like to know?”
“There are two reasons. In the first place, you have not been here long enough—we don’t know any thing about you.”
“If that isn’t a little ahead of any thing I ever heard of I wouldn’t say so!” exclaimed Tom, as soon as his rage would permit him to speak. “My father is—”
“We don’t care who or what your father is; we must know what you are. In the second place, our membership is limited, and the boys’ roster is full.”
“Couldn’t you suspend the rules for once?”
“That’s no rule. It is a part of the constitution.”
“Well, couldn’t you amend it?”
“No, we couldn’t. It has been tried in the case of one of the best fellows in town—or, rather, he was one of the best until he found that he couldn’t wind eighty boys and girls around his finger, and then he turned against us and stands ready to-day to do us all the harm he can.”