“All right,” Dan agreed. “I’ll start my campaign. I suppose the thing to do is to see all the fellows I know and get them to promise to vote for me. When does the election come off?”
“Well, the classes elect committee members about the first of November; I don’t know just what the date is, but we can find out. Then the society election comes off the first Wednesday after the second Monday in the new moon, or something idiotic like that; anyhow, it’s about the twenty-third of November. Let’s go over to Cambridge and find out all about it. Besides, there’ll be a lot of fellows there and you can get in your work.”
“All right. Better come along, Tom.”
“I’m particular where I go,” muttered Tom sleepily. Alf threw a book at him playfully and escaped before Tom could make reprisal.
Secret societies are tabooed at Yardley, although now and again one gets hints of mysterious meetings behind draped transoms at dead o’ night. But both faculty and undergraduate sentiment is opposed to such things and they soon die of inanition. The two recognized societies are Cambridge and Oxford. They are both debating clubs, although of recent years they have become rather more social than anything else. At one time or another every student has the opportunity to join one or other of the societies, but to be invited to each is considered something of an honor. This had happened to Gerald Pennimore the preceding spring, when Alf and Dan had tried to get him into Cambridge, and Tom, supported by a handful of influential friends, had offered Gerald the hospitality of Oxford. Gerald had chosen Cambridge, but thanks to Jacob Hiltz, then one of the two Third Class members of the Admission Committee, he had received one blackball, sufficient to bar him out. Dan and Alf had thereupon made up their minds to secure Gerald’s election this fall, and in order to do that it was necessary to defeat Hiltz for the Admission Committee, and Dan had agreed to run against him.
The rooms of the rival societies were on the top floor of Oxford Hall. Each was large and comfortably furnished, with plenty of cushioned window seats and easy chairs, tables for writing and good reference libraries. Many fellows made use of the rooms during the day to study in between recitations, while in the evenings they were pretty certain to be well filled with members reading or playing chess, checkers, dominoes, or cards. To-night, when Dan and Alf entered Cambridge, the weekly debate had just been finished and the thirty or forty fellows present were moving their chairs back against the walls, preparatory to social diversions. A few minutes later they had formed a group in a corner of the room with Paul Rand and Joe Chambers. Both were seniors and prominent in Cambridge affairs, Chambers being president and Rand secretary. Chambers was editor-in-chief of the school weekly, the Scholiast, while Rand was manager of the basket-ball team. Chambers soon supplied the information they desired as to election dates.
“Dan’s a candidate for the Second Class Admission Committee,” explained Alf. “By the way, who are the members in your class, Paul?”
“Derrick and I,” answered Rand.
“That’s all right, then. We want to get young Pennimore in next month. You haven’t anything against him, I suppose?”
“Not a thing.”