On behalf of their man the independent faction waged a valiant fight. Campus legend told them that for many years their class ancestors had seen victory wrested from them, once almost at the moment of victory, so in caucus they decided that they had "stood it long enough."
"Winning or not," an enthusiastic speaker cried on that occasion, "we'll show 'em a few things."
And show them a few things they did, but the things didn't count, in the wholly unexpected incident that occurred, of a sudden, to cast them into confusion, panic, chaos.
Norse was their "man." After the first ballot all was rosy for a little minute and then what did Norse do but rise in his seat, and with a calmness that was appalling withdraw in Kerwin's favor! It was a proceeding entirely unprecedented. The jaws of the fraternity men dropped. As for the independents they merely gazed at one another, blinking, their cheeks colorless.
In the silence some one with a grain of reason left in working order moved that Kerwin's election be made unanimous. The independents forgot to vote. There was not a solitary "nay." It was the succeeding cheer that aroused the independents finally. They hissed; they wrangled; and a girl was seen quickly to draw away from a group near which she was standing, for a youth with eyeglasses and long hair had used a few words that were hardly delicate.
As Kerwin was rushed down the room to the rostrum he heard some one ask, with cutting sarcasm, "Is Norse looking for a bid from your frat.?"
Kerwin took no note of the irony, replying, "He ought to have one." As he stepped behind the chairman's table he turned suddenly, and brought his fist down hard, exclaiming: "By Jove! I see now how it was!"
"How?" a henchman at his elbow asked, eagerly.
"Why, I helped out Norse in the entrance exam. in geometry. Never occurred to me till this minute. He sat next me; told me in the hall geom. was what he was afraid of. I didn't pass him a pony but I gave him a couple of cues. I guess this is his way of repaying me. Wait a second." He broke through the crescent that had formed in front of the table.
Deserted by all his former champions who, with sneers and dire threats flung in his direction had left, Norse still sat by a window at the back, bent over a copy of that day's issue of the U. of M. Daily. Kerwin went to him and held out his hand, which the other took, grinning. They talked in undertones a minute and as Kerwin joined his heelers at the table Norse strode out of the room.