"Well, Stover, you're going to make a sophomore society, and go sailing along."
"Oh, I don't know."
"Yes, you do. We don't object to such men as you, who have the right. It's the lame ducks we object to."
"Lame ducks?" said Stover, puzzled as well as surprised at this spokesman of an unsuspected proletariat opposition.
"'Lame ducks' is the word: the fellows who would never make a society if it weren't for pulls, for the men ahead—the cripples that all you big men will be trying to bolster up and carry along with you into a senior society."
"I'm not on to a good deal of this," said Stover, puzzled.
"I know you're not. Look here." Gimbel, releasing his arm, faced him suddenly. "You think I'm a politician out to get something for myself."
"Yes, I do."
"Well, I am—I'm frank about it. There's a whole mass of us here who are going to fight the sophomore society system tooth and nail, and I'm with them. When you're in the soph crowd you mightn't like what I'm saying, and then again you may come around to our way of thinking. However, I want you to know that I'm hiding nothing—that I'm fighting in the open. We may be on opposite sides, but I guess we can shake hands. How about it?"
"I guess we can always do that," said Stover, giving his hand. The man puzzled him. Was his frankness deep or a diplomatic assumption?