Without answering Allen flushed and walked off angrily.
It was the next day that the parties gathered on the top floor of Dickinson Hall for the election. George went as an amused spectator. He had played the game on the level and had destroyed his own chances, but he was afraid he had destroyed Goodhue's, too, or Goodhue had destroyed his own by insisting on taking George into the club. That was a sacrifice George wanted to repay.
Wandel, as usual, was undisturbed. Allen's angular figure wandered restlessly among the groups. George had no idea what the line-up was.
George sensed weakness in the fact that, when the nominations were opened, Wandel was the first on his feet. He recited Goodhue's virtues as an athlete and a scholar. Like a real political orator at a convention he examined his record as president the previous year. He placed him in nomination amid a satisfactory applause. Now what was coming? Who did Allen have?
When he arose Allen wore an air of getting through with a formality. He insisted on the fact that his candidate was working his way through college, and would always be near the top scholastically. He represented a section of the class that the more fortunate of the students were prone to forget. And so on—a condensation of his complaints to George. The room filled with suspense, which broke into loud laughter when Allen named a man of absolutely no importance or colour, who couldn't poll more than the votes of his personal friends. A trick, George guessed it, and everyone else. But Wandel was quickly moving that the nominations be closed. Allen glanced around with a worried, expectant air. Then George saw that Rogers was up—a flushed, nervous figure—and had got the floor. He spoke rapidly, nearly unintelligibly.
"My candidate doesn't need any introduction," he recited. "All factions can unite on him—the man that smashed the Yale and Harvard Freshmen. The man who is going to smash the Yale and Harvard varsities this year—George Morton!"
A cheer burst out, loud, from the heart. George saw that it came from both sides. The poor men had been stampeded, too.
Goodhue was on his feet, his arms upraised, demanding recognition. Suddenly George realized what this meant to Goodhue, and temper replaced his amazement. He sprang up, shouting:
"I won't have it——"
A dozen pairs of hands dragged him down. A dozen voices cried in his ears: