“No I don’t see,” answered Tony. “I dare say the three of us have a certain amount of influence, and if we chose to exert it I’ve an idea that we could get him in.”
“Well, you can hang that harp on a weeping willow-tree,” was Kit’s conclusive comment, “I don’t intend to try. I am perfectly willing to lick Ducky Thornton every day in the week for hazing him, if need be; I’m willing to have Tony bring him in here three or four times a week and bore us to death, if he wants to; but I’m hanged if I’ll try to get him into the Dealonian. That’s supposed to be made up of the representative fellows of the school. You’re carrying your guardian angelship business too far, kiddo. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Tony, for once, did not reply in like fashion to Kit’s vigorous and breezy way of expressing himself. He reflected a moment or so, and then spoke with an unusually quiet and determined air, as though he were simply making an announcement and not asking advice. “I have thought it over pretty carefully, Kit; and I’ve made up my mind to try it. I only hope you fellows will back me up.”
Jimmie was silent. Kit, convinced at last that Tony was indeed in earnest, protested vigorously. “You’re dead wrong, Tony. You oughtn’t to try it. The fellows won’t stand for it. And you’ve no right to ask me to back you up in a thing which I’m perfectly certain is a darn fool proposition.”
“Well,” said Tony, “you needn’t back me up, if you don’t want to. But that’s all rot for you to say it’s a darn fool notion. I’ve a perfect right to put him up, if I think it the thing to do, and I am going to do it.”
“Well, go ahead, and waste your time. I s’pose the little pup’ll lick your boots cleaner than ever in gratitude, whether you’re successful or not.”
Tony flared up at this. “I’ll thank you, Wilson, not to call my friends pups. I reckon I can find some decent chaps to vote for him, even if I can’t count on my own pals.” And with that, very hot in the head, he flung himself out of the room.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Kit. “To think of him flinging me over for that drowned rat! What’s the matter with him? Has he gone clean crazy?”
“He’s got the kid on his brain. But no sense in your flaring out so, Kit; that’s no way to get on with Tony. Naturally he’s sensitive.”
“Who flared up?” demanded Kit, indignantly. “I’m as calm as a millpond. Tony went off the handle because we disagreed with him. I guess I’ve as good a right to my opinions as he has to his.”