“I hardly know, sir. Mr. Pennimore has asked me to come, and so has Gerald, and I promised to go over Friday. And Gerald is coming to see me Saturday.”
“Excellent! I wonder—” Mr. Collins paused and frowned at the ink-well. “No, better not, maybe,” he muttered. “You might show him around the school, Vinton, when he comes; let him see what sort of a place we have here, eh?”
“I thought I would, sir.”
“Do! Try and interest him in our school. Look here, I’m going to make a clean breast of it to you. I want to get that boy here at Yardley. I want to beat Broadwood. You can understand that, I guess? Of course it will be a good advertisement for the school to have Mr. Pennimore’s son come to us, and in this age it is as necessary for a school to advertise as it is for any other business. But aside from that I want to get ahead of Broadwood. Now, will you help me?”
“Why, yes, sir,” answered Dan. “I’d like to beat Broadwood, too. Only—it sounds like a conspiracy, doesn’t it? Do you think it would be fair?”
“Quite,” answered Mr. Collins decisively. “You can be open and aboveboard about it. Tell the boy that you want him to come here; tell Mr. Pennimore so, too. Try and interest them both in the school life, in our athletics. If you can, introduce the boy to some of your friends here; get him to come over and see you now and then. I was going to suggest that when he visited you Saturday you might bring him over and introduce him to the Doctor; all boys like the Doctor at first sight; but maybe that had better come later. We’ll call it a conspiracy, if you like, Vinton, but it will be an honest and open conspiracy. Now what do you say?”
“I’m in on it, sir!” answered Dan eagerly. “I’d like to beat Broadwood and I’d like to have Gerald come here to school, anyway. It would do him good, Mr. Collins. I’ll do what I can, sir. I know that Gerald would love to go to school somewhere and I guess he would just as lief come here as anywhere.”
“Good! Well, the conspiracy is started then,” said Mr. Collins with a smile. “You do what you can, Vinton, and let me know what progress you make. I’d like to meet the boy myself, but I don’t want to let him think we’re trying to kidnap him, so maybe I’d better keep out of it until the right moment comes. I’m much obliged for your help, Vinton, and if the time comes that I can be of assistance to you—of course I mean without detriment to my duty—I hope you’ll call on me.”
If Dan walked down the corridor and out of Oxford with a suggestion of a swagger you can hardly blame him. It seemed to him that he was getting to be a rather important person, and he felt a little bit proud about it. Even if he had failed at making the football team he had been asked to help the team to success, and now his services had been enlisted by the school office to recruit Gerald Pennimore. Things were quite different from two weeks ago when he had known practically no one in the school and had seemed like the merest nonentity! His mind was so full of Gerald Pennimore’s capture that Old Tige shook his head sadly and remarked to the class at large that heroism and rhetoric didn’t seem to step together. Dan blushed and the rest of the fellows laughed.