The Governor walked out across the fields with the Master and Mr. Toppan in the direction of Prescott House; and when it became noised about that, after all, he was to lunch there, and not at the Master's, the Prescott boys yelled with joy and jeered at their crestfallen rivals across the way.
On the way, Clinton stopped to look in at the Chapel, where the prize speaking was to take place that evening. He laughed as he saw the well-remembered platform with its faded red carpet, and as he thought of his woeful failure the last time he had engaged in a speaking competition there. How he had vainly and weakly struggled with "Webster's Reply to Hayne," and lost his memory in the middle of it, and had sat down ignominiously, and how Old Winthrop had said, "Well, Clinton, whatever else you may do when you grow up, you will never make a speaker. Your effort was the worst I ever heard here." That was the only point that Clinton could remember on which Winthrop had ever been wrong. Certainly the audiences that were nightly cheering the keen, eloquent speeches which the Governor had been making for the past four campaigns would vigorously question the fulfilment of Mr. Winthrop's prophecy.
"Well, boys, who is going to win the Founder's Cup to-day?" Clinton asked as he sat down in the lounging-room of the Prescott House and a crowd of boys stood round the doorway, while the bolder sat uneasily on the edge of a table in the middle of the room.
"'Scotty,' I mean Bruce Campbell," replied one, rather grudgingly. "He's a Master's House fellow; but we're afraid he'll get it; although 'Skipper' Cunningham—he's one of us"—he said, pointing to a tall, stalwart, nice-looking boy outside in the hall, "will give him a hard push for it. You see, 'Scotty's' bound to get three firsts at any rate, and it's a close thing in the two-twenty-yard dash. 'Skipper's' good for a lot of seconds and one first, anyway," he said, enthusiastically.
"Oh, no, two!" shouted another boy. And thereupon so lively a discussion arose that the overawing presence of the Governor was quite forgotten.
"Prescott House is sure of the Master's Cup, anyway," said "Kid" Nelson, confidentially, to the Governor; "you can bet on that." Since his interview in the school-room, "Kid" had quite taken Clinton under his personal care.
Meanwhile, the Governor arose, and examined the pictures of the old athletic teams on the wall, and to the delight of the boys pointed out his own picture, a disreputable-looking member of one of the old foot-ball teams, absolutely unrecognizable now as the portrayal of the tall, determined, grave-looking man who stood towering up above his devoted Copley School mates for the time being.
And he still further won their undying devotion when, after asking to be taken to a certain bedroom upstairs, he very knowingly walked to the window, leaned far out, then jerked himself back with a satisfied air; and then showed them how a boy, by hanging far out of the window while two other boys grasped his legs from within, could reach round the corner of the House, get hold of a portico-railing, and escape from the room and down to the earth in that fashion. It was undoubtedly an immoral thing for the Governor to do, but he could not resist the temptation, so delightful was it to find how the memory of all the most minute old misdeeds came back.
The Masters of Prescott House, indeed, were very sure that Governor Clinton's influence had been very far from good on their charges, when during the next week they found that five boys made use of this highly reprehensible method of exit from the House during evening study-hour.
And at dinner what could more delight the boys than that Clinton should decline to sit at the head of the table, next to the Master and the other teachers, but should sit opposite, with a boy on either side, where he could learn all the details of the present school life, its rivalries, revelries, hardships, and zests!