“Dear Clapperton,—Sides have nothing to do with it. If the best fifteen names were all on your side, I should have to select them. But they are not. The fifteen I have chosen are undoubtedly the best men we have, and the team most likely to win the match. I suppose that is what we play for.
“Yours truly,—
“Cecil Yorke.”
This polite correspondence Clapperton laid before his friends. The general feeling was that the Moderns were being unfairly and disrespectfully used.
“It’s the old story over again,” said Dangle. “If we don’t look after ourselves, nobody else will.”
“At any rate, as long as he’s captain, I suppose he has the right to pick the team,” said Fullerton. “I shouldn’t be particularly sorry if he were to leave me out. It wouldn’t matter to me.”
“Who cares whether it matters to you? It matters to our side,” said Brinkman, “and we oughtn’t to stand it.”