The following weeks were ones of intrigue and nervous speculation. Pledged among the first, he found himself with Hunter, Story, and Tommy Bain in the position of adviser as to the selection of the rest of his crowd. Hunter and Bain, each with an object in view, sought to enlist his aid. He perceived their intentions, not duped by the new cordiality, growing more and more antagonistic to their businesslike ambitions. With Joe Hungerford and Bob Story he found his real friends. And yet, what completely surprised him was the lack of careless, indolent camaraderie which he had known at school and had expected in larger scope at college. Everyone was busy, working with a dogged persistence along some line of ambition. The long, lazy afternoons and pleasant evenings were not there. Instead was the grinding of the mills and the turning of the wheels. How it was with the rest he ignored; but with his own crowd—the chosen—life was earnest, disciplined in a set purpose. He felt it in the open afternoon, in the quiet passage of candidates for the baseball teams, the track, and the crew; in the evenings, in the strumming of instruments from Alumni Hall and the practising of musical organizations, and most of all in the flitting, breathless passage of the News heelers—in snow or sleet, running in and out of buildings, frantically chasing down a tip, haggard with the long-drawn-out struggle now ending the fourth month.
He himself had surrendered again to this compelling activity and gone over to the gymnasium, taking his place at the oars in the churning tanks, bending methodically as the bare torso of the man in front bent or shot back, concentrating all his faculties on the shouted words of advice from the pacing coach above him.
He was too light to win in the competition of unusual material—he could only hope for a second or third substitute at best; but that was what counted, he said to himself, what made competition in the class and brought others out, just as it did in football. And so he stuck to his grind, satisfied, on the whole, that his afternoons were mapped out for him.
Meanwhile the pledges to the sophomore societies continued and the field began to narrow. McCarthy’s hold-off was renewed each time, but the election did not arrive.
In his own crowd Story, Hungerford, and himself found themselves in earnest alliance for the election of Regan and Brockhurst. Regan, however, had so antagonized certain members of their sophomore crowd that their task was well-nigh impossible. He had been pronounced “fresh,” equivalent almost to a ban of excommunication, for his extraordinary lack of reverence to things that traditionally should be revered, and as he had a blunt, direct way of showing in his eyes what he liked and disliked, his sterling qualities were forgotten in the irritation he caused. Besides, as the opening narrowed to three or four vacancies, Hunter and Bain, in the service of their own friends, arrayed themselves in silent opposition to him and to Brockhurst.
About the latter, Stover found himself increasingly unable to make up his mind. He went to see him once or twice, but the visit was never returned. In his infallibility—for infallibility is a requisite of a leader—he decided that there was something queer about him. He rather shunned others, took long walks by himself, in a crowd always seemed removed, watching others with a distant eye which had in it a little mockery. His room was always in confusion, as was his tousled hair. In a word, he was a little of a barbarian, who did not speak the ready lip language that was current in social gatherings, and, unfortunately, did not show well his paces when confronted with inspection. So when the final vote came Stover, infallible judge of human nature, conscientiously decided that Brockhurst did not rank with the exceedingly choice crowd of which he was a leader.
With the arrival of the elections for the managerships of the four big athletic organizations, positions in the past disputed by the candidacies of the three sophomore societies, a revolution took place. The non-society element, organized by Gimbel and other insurgents ahead of him, put up a candidate for the football managership and elected him by an overwhelming majority, and repeated their success with the Navy.
The second victory was like the throwing down of a gauntlet. The class, which had been quietly dividing since the advent of the hold-offs, definitely split, and for the first time Stover became aware of the soundness of the opposition to the social system of which he was a prospective leader. Quite to his surprise, Jim Hunter appeared in his room one night.
“What the deuce does he want now?” he thought to himself, wondering if he were to be again solicited in favor of Stone, who was still short of election.
“I say, Dink, we’re up against a serious row,” said Hunter, making himself comfortable and speaking always in the same unvarying tone. “The class is split to pieces.”
“It looks that way.”
“It’s all Gimbel and that crowd of soreheads he runs. We had trouble with him up at Andover.”
“Well, Jim, what do you think about the whole proposition?” said Stover. “The college seems pretty strong against us.”
“It’s just a couple of men who are cooking it up to work themselves into office,” said Hunter, dismissing the idea lightly. “You’ll see, that’s all there is to it.”
Somehow, Stover found that renewed contest with Hunter only increased the feeling of antagonism he had felt from the first. He was aware of a growing resistance to Hunter’s point of view, guarded and deliberate as it was. So he said point blank:
“I’m not so sure there isn’t some basis for the feeling. We ought to watch out and make ourselves as democratic as possible.”
“My dear fellow,” said Hunter, in the tone of amused worldliness, “these anti-society fights go on everywhere. There was a great hullabaloo six or seven years ago, and then it
