The middlers’ class meeting came a few days later, interjecting two days of excitement into the dulness of winter. When Rogers, who had been made president in the fall, unexpectedly left school, the natural course would have been to advance Laughlin, who was vice-president, and elect a new man to succeed him. This might have been done without the least flurry of excitement in a two-minute meeting called after a recitation. The plot hatched in Stone’s room made such a course impossible.

Let it not be for a moment supposed that the Whitely-Marchmont combination kept their movements secret. The partisanship was too violent to bear restraint. In the hour when an eager but unwise member of the Butler faction undertook to canvass a natural follower of Laughlin, a Laughlin party came suddenly into existence, and on vague hints of a conspiracy had a wondrous growth.

In the old days of small classes every boy would have been pledged beforehand, and brought personally to do his duty at the polls. With a class of more than a hundred to deal with, this was not so easy. Some were too lazy and indifferent to be stirred by entreaty; a few serious plodders scorned the whole agitation; a larger number still, either from actual indecision or through a desire for fun, declined to commit themselves in advance. Nevertheless, when Marchmont and his companions, who had been hustling all day like busy ward heelers, gathered their pledged followers for an imposing entry into the assembly room, they constituted a truly formidable body.

“It’ll be close,” said Marchmont to Lindsay, on the way in; “but I think we can turn the trick. Our fellows are well organized, and this bunch will influence a lot of the wavering chaps who want to be on the winning side. We’ve got a neat little game to spring on them when the time comes.”

“What’s that?” asked Lindsay.

“Stone’s going to nominate Ware to split up the Laughlin crowd. Ware is sick and can’t get here to decline, and he’ll take votes away from the other side, and we’ll win on the plurality vote. See?”

Lindsay saw, but for some reason did not greet the scheme with enthusiasm. Ware was a well-known man in the class, a high-ranking scholar, editor of the Seatonian, and a prize winner. He belonged rather to the “grinds” than to the “sports”; but he was generally respected, and on a less momentous occasion would have commanded Lindsay’s own vote. It seemed not altogether worthy of the superior pretensions of the party to take this method of defeating their opponents; but Lindsay the partisan was stronger than Lindsay the moralist. “All’s fair in love and war—and politics,” he said to himself, reassuringly. “The dish washer needs a lesson.”

The secretary called the meeting to order, and Ransome was made chairman. Then Whitely nominated Butler in a grandiloquent speech, in which he called his candidate “a gentleman known and admired by all, who has labored for the school on the gridiron and on the athletic field,” repudiated the principle that class office should be given to a man because he was captain of a school team, and declared no one worthier or more capable of representing the class than Sam Butler. He sat down in a burst of applause that began on Lindsay’s side, and extended over the whole room.

Then Poole had his turn at speech making, and in language somewhat less florid, but just as laudatory, set forth the merits of candidate Laughlin, and explained the opportunity the class now had of honoring itself by honoring him. Poole also was generously applauded, for those who were opposed to his candidate were not opposed to him personally, and were quite willing to show their feeling by cheering him.

As Wolcott looked round for the next move in the game of politics, he thought he saw Laughlin starting to rise. His attention was distracted at the moment, however, by Stone, who had gained the attention of the chair and was already well started in his task of praising a third nominee, Ware. This new nomination, unexpected and inexplicable to most of the class, produced the greater consternation on the Laughlin side, as the eulogy was delivered with apparent seriousness and with a semblance of authority which in Ware’s absence could not be disputed. Guy Morgan, who was standing near the door, disappeared early in the speech, as soon as it was evident what the new nomination was to be; the other Laughlin leaders whispered and questioned in perplexity.

A silence followed for a few moments, as the chairman, full of the dignity of his position, made formal pause for further nominations. He was just opening his lips to declare the nominations closed when a big figure rose in one of the back rows.

“Mr. Chairman.”

“Mr. Laughlin.”

“It seems hardly necessary for me to say that I am deeply grateful to the members of this class who have shown a desire to have me as their president. It is the highest honor from the largest and best class in school. Ever since I first learned that this contest was likely, I have been considering: first, whether I am a fit man for the position; and second, whether, with the responsibility for the football which the school has put upon me I ought to assume anything else. I had about made up my mind when I came here to-night. The speeches and nominations which have been made have merely strengthened me in my purpose. There are others in the class better fitted to represent you than I am. There is nothing in my career to give me place over a dozen fellows that I can name. One responsibility I have assumed and cannot shirk. Until I can come before you with a victorious eleven, I neither deserve nor want any further honors at your hands. It is impossible for me to accept the nomination which you have so kindly made.”

Laughlin took his seat, wiping his heated face. His followers sat dismayed, almost indignant that he should suddenly desert them at the last moment. The Butlerites whispered together in doubt, and cursed the Ware nomination as a boomerang, an idiot’s trick. Without it their man would be alone, and the office would be his. Then the door opened, and Ware, muffled to his ears in an ulster, his face pale from several days’ confinement to his room, shuffled with Morgan’s help to a position near the front.

“Mr. Chairman,” he began in a weak voice.

“Mr. Ware.”

“I understand that I have been nominated here to-night for president of the class. I have given no one permission to use my name in this way; I positively decline to be a candidate. Whoever nominated me did it without my authority for the purpose of drawing votes from a better candidate. It’s a mean trick which I hope won’t succeed. I withdraw my name in favor of Laughlin.”

Ware sat down and unbuttoned his heavy coat. The partisans of both sides stared at each other in silence; the less serious began to snicker; the plot was becoming too complicated to unravel. A grinning supporter of Butler leaned forward and called jeeringly to the waiting Ware:—

“Laughlin declined long ago, you Rip van Winkle. Go home and go to sleep again.”

Instantly Ware straightened up. “Who are the nominees, then?”

“No one but Butler,” replied the jubilant heeler. “He’s got it all his own way.”

Ware did not hesitate a moment. “Mr. Chairman,” he called, rising eagerly, “are the nominations closed?”

“They are not,” returned the presiding officer.

“Will you kindly tell who have been nominated?”

“Butler, Laughlin, and Ware have been proposed. The names of Laughlin and Ware have been withdrawn.”

“Then I nominate—” Ware hesitated and ran his eye hastily over the astonished audience “—then I nominate Poole. He needs no recommendation and no eulogy. You know him too well. If you don’t happen to know him, ask any one who was here last June how the Hillbury game was won; and if you don’t hear Poole’s name in connection with it, don’t vote for him!”

With that Ware dropped into his seat, and a din of howling and whistling and stamping of feet arose that proved Ware’s simple harangue an inspiration of genius. Twice Poole struggled to his feet, apparently with an important message to deliver, and twice he was pulled down again by his coat tail, ignominiously and hard.

The chairman then declared the nominations closed, appointed the tellers, and called for votes. Not a soul, except the thirty fellows pledged, voted for Butler. Laughlin received two votes, Ware five, and Poole sixty-two. Butler moved that the vote be made unanimous, and Laughlin escorted the president-elect to the chair, where Poole stammered his thanks, and received and put to vote a motion to adjourn. Thus ended the most exciting election of the class of 19—.