“Then you’d better find out,” said the Shark simply.
“How?”
“From headquarters. Ask the principal.”
“Oh!” said Sam. His tone was not blithe.
“You’ve struck the right track, Shark!” Poke declared.
“No; I’m putting Sam on it,” the Shark corrected.
There are obligations in leadership as well as privileges. Sam accepted the task set him by his followers.
“The Shark has the idea,” he said. “We ought to know what is what, and I guess it’s up to me to do the asking. I’ll attend to it. But there’s another thing—we ought to agree—have an understanding among ourselves—about what we’ll do—with the crowd at school, you know. We’re going to have our fur rubbed the wrong way. There’ll be a lot of ugly talk. There has been some, as you know, but there’ll be more. We’re going to be a pretty unpopular bunch for a while—and how are we going to take it?”
“Head on!” cried Step. “Give ’em as good as they send!”
“That’s the talk!” vowed Herman Boyd.