“Not if he’s left to himself, but I intend to see that he is wanted. What I am conducting is a quiet campaign in the interests of Kendall Burtis. If he does his part you’ll find when it comes time to elect a captain for next year that they’ll be crying for Kendall!”
Harry viewed the other in rapt and admiring awe for a moment. Then, doubtfully, “But it doesn’t seem to me that he’s got it in him to be a good captain, Gerald. He—he isn’t a leader. I don’t say he can’t play football, for I think he can, although even that’s got to be proved a bit more, hasn’t it? But—well, it takes certain qualities to be a good captain.”
“What are they?”
“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Pluck, of course, and brains and—and executive ability——”
“Whatever that is,” laughed Gerald. “Well, you can’t say Kendall hasn’t pluck after the way he went overboard the other day without being able to swim a stroke. And as for brains, well, you think a minute.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, he’s got a good thinker, I guess.”
“And he can be wonderfully cool in an emergency,” continued Gerald.
“How do you know that?”
“By the way he stepped out on the field last year at the eleventh hour, grabbed off the grand stand in a pair of long trousers and hustled into a sweater, and stood there and kicked that goal with the whole Broadwood team trying to get through and kill him.”