"Look at him," said Powelton from the window. "My, but he makes me tired when he tries to do the dead-game act."
He made them all more or less tired, though most of them liked him somewhat still, but in a very different way now. He was not a hero any more.
He tried to make himself as much like them as he could, but he had only succeeded in seeming unlike himself. They had not expected or wanted him to be like them.
They laughed at him, behind his back and to his face.
He tried harder.
They laughed more. He did not realize why.
There were a great many things that he did not realize. When he was nominated for the secretary-treasurership, as Powelton now felt like telling him, it was not because they wanted him, but because the club wanted the office. And neither did he realize that he was elected chiefly because of his good reputation, now undeserved, with the despised quiet fellows of the class.
All he realized was that he, William Young, who had started out a poor, ridiculed nonentity from the country, had conquered the famous bully of the Sophomore class, had won a place as right guard of the Freshman team, had been sought out by the Invincibles, had earned enough money to take him through the year, and, finally, had been elected the secretary and treasurer of the great class of Ninety-blank by popular vote. It was the very office formerly held by the admired Lucky Lee. It was ill that was needed to turn his head.
So he strutted about and looked patronizingly down on his old friends Barrows and Wilson, and blew smoke in their faces, telling himself how narrow-minded they were.
You see, he came to the Invincibles a hero dizzy with success. It is hard on anyone to be a hero, and success had proved too much for him. Instead of doing the Invincibles good, as he had intended, they had done him harm, as they surely never intended. It was such a pity. He could have made a very different thing of the whole club if he had only used his influence in the right way.