Stuart walked back to school with Jack and Fred Locker and said little on the way. The evening’s proceedings had left him feeling extremely unimportant, and the feeling wasn’t an agreeable one. The manager left them to look in at the mass meeting which, as was evident from the sounds that came from the assembly hall in Manning, was still in progress, and Stuart and Jack paused at the corner of Lacey. There was silence between them for a moment, and then Stuart said impulsively: “Jack, it was a mighty good thing they dished me and made you captain. You’ve got the brain for it, and I hadn’t. I didn’t realize it until to-night.”
“Rot!” said Jack indignantly. “Besides, brain—or what you mean by that—isn’t the only thing a captain needs, Stuart. The right sort of football captain needs what I haven’t got and never could get.”
“What?” asked Stuart.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know how to put it into words. It isn’t exactly popularity, and—leadership isn’t quite it. Those things are part of it, though. I read about a fellow who was a captain over in France in the War. He wasn’t popular exactly. Some of his men loved him but a lot more fairly hated him. But they all believed in him, Stuart, and they’d have followed him to—to Berlin, and cheered all the way! I guess that’s about what I’m trying to get at. What that fellow had is what I haven’t got and what you have, Stuart.”
“I have?” muttered Stuart. “I don’t think I knew it, Jack.” He was silent a moment. Then with a little laugh that held more of bitterness than amusement, he added: “If I had, I’ve surely lost it. No one would follow me to-day as far as the door there!”
“You failed them, Stuart,” answered the other gravely. “But they’ll come back when you say the word.”
“Come back? Oh—well—I guess there won’t be any coming back. I suppose I did play the fool, Jack. Just the same, I guess it was better for the team. You’re a better captain than I was or could have been. I—I haven’t been awfully decent lately, and—well, you might forget it, if you don’t mind, and——”
“Oh, shut up!” said Jack gruffly. “Go to the dickens, will you? Good night, you poor simp!”
Stuart found Number 12 in darkness. Neil, he reflected, was probably over at the cheer meeting. Neil had a sentimental streak in him and loved to get choked up and moist-eyed listening to the Glee Club sing “Old Manning!” Stuart didn’t light up just then, but pulled a chair to the window and put his feet on the window seat and looked across at the lights in Meigs and thought over what Jack had said and what had happened during the evening and a lot of things. When Neil came in later he found him still there.