"You are entitled to your own belief."
"It isn't right."
"But it's just what you fellows in the cabin did before Cantwell was elected," answered Wainwright.
"We hadn't any secret society: we only met in the cabin to talk over the matter."
"In the cabin, where no one but yourselves could come."
"We are going to do away with this thing, anyhow, and go back to the old plan," added De Forrest.
"And confess that your famous plan was good for nothing?"
"The plan was a good one, but the fellows won't be fair."
"Which means that they wouldn't make you first lieutenant."
"It don't mean that. It means that a majority of the fellows—all of them in the steerage—voted for a fellow for captain whom they did not like, and who, they knew, was not fit for the place, out of spite to the officers. If they had voted on their own judgment, instead of following Scott's lead—"