He strove mightily to wrest himself from the clutches of the encircling lariat. He heaved, strained, twisted, writhed; but rawhide is uncompromising to a degree. At the end of one strenuous minute he subsided, panting, perspiring, glaring like a trapped lion. Peter sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t want you to think,” he announced, “that I have taken this course willingly; you—you have driven me to it. I gave you full warning.”
Morris roared loudly, inarticulately. Peter waited politely, then continued, “I gave you fair warning. I told you I had to have the money. I regret putting you to this—this inconvenience, and——”
For a space the bed rocked like a scow in a squall.
“And assure you that as soon as you do your duty to the freshman crew and to yourself I’ll let you up.”
Peter interlaced his fingers round one knee and settled himself comfortably against the foot-rail. He observed the captive gravely, dispassionately, almost indulgently, as a just parent might view a disobedient child to whom punishment is being meted out. Then he began to talk. He pointed out to Morris that a college man’s duty does not end with himself; that he should consider the good of the university and his class, and stand ready and eager to support the honor of each to the best of his ability; that he should be willing to sacrifice his personal pleasure to that end. Class spirit, said Peter, was one of the most beautiful things about college life.
Peter talked leisurely, eloquently, even convincingly. Having established—to his own satisfaction, at least—the claim that the class body possesses on its members, he passed to the subject of the benefits of athletics. When he had exhausted that, he indicated the self-evident fact that athletics can prosper only with the support of the students. Morris by this time had raged himself dry of expletives, and was a silent, if unenthusiastic, auditor.