“Of course you could, mother. You could do any thing that you set out to do, only I won’t be kept,” answered the boy, bravely. “The next thing you hear of me will be that I am a junior partner in some Wall Street concern; see if I am not.”
The first person Myles met upon entering the college-grounds was Bert Smedley, who held out a paper to him, saying:
“You are just the one I was looking for, Manning. We have got to raise a hundred or two more to see you fellows through at New London, and our set has undertaken to do it. Here’s the subscription paper, and I wouldn’t let a fellow sign it until I’d got your name to head the list. So, now, give us something handsome as a starter.”
Myles’ heart sank at these words, and there was a choking sensation in his throat as he answered:
“There’s no use coming to me, Bert, I can’t give a cent. You see, my father has got into trouble, and I’ve got to leave college and go to work to help him out of it. If you will only speak a word for me to your father, though, and ask if he can’t find me some sort of a berth in his business, whatever that is, for I don’t think I ever heard you say, I’ll be ever so much obliged to you, and will do as much and more for you if ever I have a chance.”
“But you are captain of the crew!” gasped Smedley, bewildered by this sudden turn of affairs.
“No, I’m not, now,” answered Myles. “My resignation is already written and sent in. It was hard enough to give it up, you’d better believe; but it had to be done—and business before pleasure, you know. You’ll speak a good word for me, old man, won’t you?”
“I’ll see,” replied the other. Then adding, “Excuse me a moment; there’s Watkins, and I must have his name,” he hurried away, anxious to be the first to communicate the astounding intelligence he had just learned to Myles’ most prominent rival.
The news flew fast, and Myles had hardly begun to dismantle his room of its many pretty bits of bric-a-brac, preparatory to packing up his belongings, before it was filled with a throng of fellows anxious to hear from his own lips the truth of the startling rumor.