Talbot and Sumner were the Westcott members of the general committee which was to consider the protest of the Newbury captain. They did not lack advice as to what to say and what not to say, nor original suggestions concerning methods of influencing the Trowbridge vote, which, as everybody understood, must really decide the matter. Mr. Westcott was the only counsellor to whom they gave heed, and his directions they determined to follow to the best of their ability. They were to avoid all display of feeling, keep their tempers under absolute control, tell their story calmly without acrimony, and throw themselves unreservedly upon the sense of fairness of the committee. Such a course was especially difficult for Talbot, whose vehemence tolerated no trifling or evasion, and whose frankness verged on discourtesy. He felt his own unfitness for the task before him, even while he longed to be brought face to face with the traducers of his school.

“You’ll have to do the talking, Jack,” he said, as the two delegates, having patiently endured to the end the fusillade of admonitions and counsel with which their ears had been deafened all day long, took seats in the car which was to carry them to the Newbury School. “If I once get going, I’m bound to go off the handle and ruin the whole business.”

“I don’t believe you will,” answered Sumner, reassuringly. “There’s too much at stake. You just want to think of it as seven honest people brought together to consider a question of fact,—that’s what Mr. Westcott said,—not as if you were out for a fight with three sworn enemies and two doubtful characters.”

“If Smithy isn’t an enemy, I don’t know what an enemy is! I wish Harry or Steve were here in my place; either would be a lot better than I. Harry can hold his tongue, and Steve can talk an apple off a tree!”

“You can hold your tongue, too.”

“I will, if I have to bite it off—until they decide against us. When that comes, I’m going to call ’em just what they are, a pack of thieves!”

“But it may not come,” said Sumner, quietly.

“Oh, it will. Everybody thinks so. Mr. Snyder will vote with us because Trowbridge will want to seem to be fair, and Frost will vote with Newbury. That will make a tie, and Smithy will be forced in the interests of pure athletics to give the deciding vote against us.”

“I don’t believe it. Anyway, if that’s your opinion, you don’t want to show it, or they’ll think you know you haven’t any case. We want to act as if we were sure of the rightfulness of our claim, and had only to state it to have it granted.”

“I wish there was something I could do!” groaned Pete. “I hate to sit around and pretend.”

The other members of the committee were already assembled when Sumner and Talbot were shown into the room. The glance with which Pete took in this fact hardened immediately into a look of hostility, for it seemed to him probable that the five had already used their opportunity to come to a decision with reference to the object of the meeting, and that the proceedings would now be merely formal. But Sumner was already going the rounds, shaking hands with everybody in a spirit of great friendliness; so Pete, suspecting that this was the proper time to begin that assumption of confidence to which Sumner had urged him, fell in behind his colleague, with a mighty effort crowding back his feeling of distrust. Mr. Snyder and Frost greeted him cordially, and though Newbold vouchsafed but a languid clasp of the hand and murmured a palpably empty phrase of politeness through a frigid grimace, Thorne gave him a grip of reassuring warmth. He tarried therefore at Thorne’s side and talked with him for a few minutes on indifferent themes,—such as sailing and summer dances,—thereby turning his back on President John and avoiding the necessity of dissembling before that much-hated dignitary.

Thorne and Talbot were old friends, although their position now seemed to Pete more like that of enemies approaching the battlefield. Their summer houses stood within a mile of each other on Buzzard’s Bay, and even now their boats lay housed side by side. It was a pity that a naturally decent fellow like Thorne could be so blinded by rabid partisanship as to lend himself as an abettor to the scheme of a John Smith!

So Talbot was thinking, more in sorrow than in wrath, when President John mounted the platform—a recitation room was their council chamber—and called the meeting to order. They separated now to three benches, Newbold and Thorne on the left wing, Mr. Snyder and Frost in the centre, Talbot and Sumner on the right. “It’s like a court,” whispered Pete, “with Trowbridge for judge. We’re no good except to pair with Newbold and Thorne.”

The chairman introduced the business of the hour with all solemnity. The committee had met to consider the charge made by Newbury that Westcott’s had won the game of Saturday by unfair and dishonorable methods. It had been to him a great disappointment that the first contest in the new league, to which he had devoted so much time and thought, should have been darkened by scandal. He felt, however, and he was confident that the majority of the committee agreed with him, that there could be no turning back upon the ideals of the league—again those ideals!—The mere winning or losing of a game was of slight consequence compared with the supreme importance of holding unswervingly to the highest conceptions of honor and gentlemanly conduct.

“The old hypocrite!” whispered Pete in Sumner’s ear.

“Hush!” and a warning hand clutched the offender’s knee.

The chairman now read the protest,—which wound up with a demand that the game be declared forfeited to Newbury,—and complacently asked what should be done with it, addressing presumably the whole committee, but looking straight before him at the two members from Trowbridge.

“I think we ought to consider first the grounds for the protest, and afterwards, if the protest is sustained, the penalty,” said Mr. Snyder.

“Very well,” agreed the chairman; “we will hear the Newbury statements first.”

If the protest is sustained! Why should they mention the penalty at all unless they meant to sustain the protest? Talbot became more than ever convinced that the whole affair was prejudged and that the proceedings would be merely the carrying out of a prearranged plan.

He listened closely to Newbold, none the less, when the latter, in the capacity of prosecuting attorney, presented his case. Newbury had been unfortunate this year in the selection of Callahan as coach. A week before the game with Westcott’s, for certain reasons unnecessary to state, he had been discharged. Callahan was very “sore” and declared in presence of witnesses—Newbold held up a paper which he said contained their statements—that he’d “get even.” A few days afterward, Callahan had been observed at the Westcott field in long conversation with a Westcott player—another display of papers. Later this player was seen conferring with Harrison and others of the football men. In the course of this conference, one of the Westcott men dropped a paper which the witness secured; on it was written the address of the discharged coach. Suspecting an attempt to steal a knowledge of their game, Newbury had changed certain plays and signals, but because the time was too short to master an entirely new set they had been compelled to use a large number of the old ones. In the game Westcott’s had often understood the Newbury signals as soon as they were given out, and it was the old signals which they understood. Through a knowledge of the signals, Westcott’s spoiled Newbury’s play and won.

As Newbold sat down, Mr. Smith drew his hand across his forehead, swept the line of benches with a look of sorrow and pain, and sighed audibly. There was plainly no doubt at all in the chairman’s mind as to the substantial truth of the charge. It was but too clear that a treacherous blow had been struck at the fair fame of the Triangular League, and at those ideals of sportsmanship which were ever the objects of President John’s highest solicitude. But Anglo-Saxon justice has established the principle that the worst criminal has a right to be heard in his own defence. Mr. Smith turned therefore to the bench on his left, and with the manner of a judge asking the convicted felon whether he has any statement to make before sentence is passed, invited the representatives from Westcott’s to make response.

Sumner had prepared no speech; he lacked, moreover, as he would himself assert, all talent for impromptu oratory. But he could tell a plain story with candor and simplicity, and there spoke in his tones an honest conviction, which would inspire belief if the listening ears were attuned to such a voice. He denied with all the vigor he could put into words that Westcott’s had bought or stolen or had any previous knowledge of the Newbury signals. Callahan had approached one of the Westcott players and offered to betray the signals, but Westcott’s had scorned the offer. The address which the Newbury spy had discovered was thrown away, not dropped. In the game Westcott’s had learned a few signals by listening to them as they were given by the Newbury quarter, but before the game began, they had absolutely no knowledge of the signals to be used by their opponents.

“I should like to know, then, how it happened that it was the old signals, not the new ones, that you found out,” began Newbold, savagely, as Sumner dropped back into his seat.

“If that was the case,” answered Sumner, “it was merely chance. All we got was three or four numbers for holes.”

Newbold sniffed. “I should like to ask something else, too,” he continued. “You’ve played football and you know what the excitement is in a game. Do you think it is an easy thing to detect a lot of unknown signals while the game is going on?”

“No, I don’t,” answered Sumner, calmly, “but you could get a few if they were given as openly as yours were.”

“They weren’t given openly!”

At this point, perhaps in the interest of peace, Mr. Snyder interposed with a question. “What has Callahan to say about this? Have you his statement?”

Sumner recounted the futile efforts which Westcott’s had made to induce the coach to give evidence, not concealing the fact that Callahan now denied that he had offered any signals at all.

At this frank admission Newbold gave vent to a nervous titter of derision. President John smiled contemptuously. “Your stories do not hang together, Mr. Sumner,” he said.

“One story is ours and the other is Callahan’s,” answered Sumner, quickly. “They can’t hang together if Callahan lies.”

Pete whispered into Sumner’s ear, “Ask Thorne about it!”

“Ask him yourself!”

Talbot got upon his feet. “We’ve been answering questions for a while, now I think it’s our turn to ask a few. I want Thorne to tell us whether we recognized any signals on his side of the line.”

“Yes,” answered Thorne.

“How many?”

“I am sure of one, the play outside tackle.”

“Was it in the first or last part of the game?”

“The last.”

“Was it an old signal or a new one?”

“A new one.”

“I think he’s mistaken about that,” cried Newbold, and he applied himself immediately with angry exhortations to his colleague’s ear. Thorne reddened under the attack, but did not retreat.

“You see, it was just as Sumner said,” commented Talbot, addressing the central bench. “We picked up a few signals during the game. Callahan couldn’t have given us that tackle signal, if we had asked him.”

“Unfortunately it isn’t a question of one signal, but of many,” said President John, quickly. “You ask us to believe what the football experts assure us is impossible.”

“If you have a fool quarter-back, anything is possible,” retorted Talbot. “When three plays out of four in succession are sent at the same hole with only a slight alteration in the signal, a fellow must be an idiot not to guess what the signal means!” Pete stopped short there, for Sumner pulled him down.

“We didn’t do that!” snapped Newbold.

Again Mr. Snyder interfered. “I think we may as well vote now,” he said. “We have heard both sides.”

“Yes, vote!” muttered Talbot. “That’s what we’re here for! It’s no use to waste time on the truth if you’ve already made up your minds not to accept it.” The words were spoken too low to carry distinctly, a prudence which must be credited to the restraining influence of Sumner’s clutch upon the speaker’s knee.

“We will take the vote then,” announced the chairman, in accents of genuine relief; but he added immediately, “Unless some one has additional evidence to present or questions to ask.”

“I think further discussion would be unprofitable,” said Mr. Snyder, quickly. “Newbury has made a charge and Westcott’s has denied it. It only remains for us to give our decision.”

To this sentiment the general silence gave consent.