The game was played again under prescribed conditions, and the upper middlers won once more, this time in consequence of practice gained in playing together, by good use of the forward pass, and through Kendrick’s splendid plunges and fast runs. In fact, Kendrick was easily the hero of the game. Late in the season as it was, the coach took him immediately on to the school eleven as a substitute back, and as luck would have it, he got his S by slipping into the unfortunate Hillbury game at the very end. Of this we shall speak later or not at all. Sam Archer too, in much less conspicuous fashion, won credit in the class match, though the senior centre got under him several times and carried him off on his back. Big Ames of baseball fame played with his usual ungainly determination, and a fellow named Mulcahy was much in evidence during the game.

It was on the subject of this Mulcahy that Archer and Peck came to their first open disagreement. They naturally talked the game over that evening—Sam with frank elation, Peck in a spirit of good-natured forgiveness. When Mulcahy’s name was mentioned, Peck’s attitude changed instantly.

“He’s a mucker!” he said, with contemptuous curtness.

“Why?” demanded Archer.

“Because he is,” answered Peck. “Anybody with half an eye can see it. He held Wildes twice to-day.”

Sam smiled wisely. “If everybody is a mucker who held in to-day’s game, Mulcahy isn’t the only fellow in the class. Putnam tripped Ames deliberately. I saw it myself.”

“It was probably a knee tackle that slipped down.”

“No, he stuck out his foot and Ames fell over it.”

“Well, that’s just because he doesn’t know the game. No one who is acquainted with Harry Putnam would charge him with dirty play. If he did that, it was because he didn’t know any better, or forgot himself.”

“But if Mulcahy did the same thing, it proves he’s a mucker!”

Sam was quite satisfied with this rejoinder. If Duncan Peck had any sense at all, he must recognize the absurdity of his prejudice. Sam, at the age of seventeen, with several generations of locally honored ancestors behind him, had become, since his arrival at Seaton, an ardent democrat. He believed firmly that a boy was as good as his mind and character made him, without regard to the clothes on his back or the money in his pocket or the social position of his nearest relatives. Rebelling instinctively at the pretensions of certain fellows whose fathers had “struck it rich,” and whose money gave them a kind of importance, he was disposed to see in the poorer fellows who were carrying the burden of their future on their own unaided shoulders, examples of a sturdy, manly independence wholly admirable.

“Whether he did the same thing or not,” replied Peck, coolly, “Mulcahy is a mucker.”

“The real difference is that Mulcahy works his way and Putnam doesn’t,” asserted Sam, warmly.

Duncan smiled scornfully. “The real difference is that Mulcahy works other people and Putnam doesn’t!”

“Putnam doesn’t have to,” retorted Sam.

“Neither does Mulcahy.”

“Why, he has to earn every cent he spends,” returned Sam, eagerly. “It takes a lot more stuff in you to do that than to wear good clothes and keep your hands white on the money your father gives you. It’s these fellows who earn their way who do things when they get into real work. They’re used to hard knocks, and they go straight ahead when fellows like Putnam flat out. That’s proved by the whole history of the Academy.”

“What’s proved by the whole history of the Academy?” asked Peck, with irritating calmness.

“Why, that fellows that earn their way make the most successful men.”

“I haven’t said a word against fellows who earn their own way,” retorted Peck, sharply. “They may make the most successful men and they may not. I don’t care anything about that. But if you think that the history of the Academy proves that every scholarship fellow becomes a great and good man, you’re sadly off. The scholarship fellows are of all kinds—good, bad, and indifferent. Some are nice fellows; some are dead beats, getting their board and clothes off the Academy because it’s less work and more fun than it would be to milk cows or work in the shoe-shop; some seem to be training for crooks or anarchists. They work their way because they have to, that’s all. You don’t suppose they prefer it, do you?”

“Mulcahy plays football, and is on the ‘Seatonian,’ and does well in his studies, and he is a good speaker in the Laurel Leaf,” remarked Archer, feeling suddenly his inexperience, and returning to the personal example when general assertion proved unsafe. “He amounts to more than Kendrick, and yet you don’t make any objection to Kendrick.”

“Kendrick is a good fellow,” said Duncan, enigmatically.

“But Mulcahy isn’t!” completed Archer, with a sarcastic grin.

“No, Mulcahy isn’t.” Duncan’s assertion was made in the nonchalant fashion which we use in stating generally accepted facts. A slight pause ensued, which he broke with a sudden accession of vehemence. “It’s no use to argue about such fellows. Either you like ’em or you don’t. It’s a matter of taste, and the way you have of looking at fellows. We shan’t agree, because we don’t think alike. You have your kind and I have mine. You’ve a right to admire Mulcahy and his gang if you want to. I suppose you’ve got a right to bring him in here, too—as half the room is yours.”

“I shall if I want to,” answered Sam, with head high. “He’s just as good as—as we are.”

“That depends on the value you set on yourself,” returned Duncan, coolly, taking his books into his bedroom with the air of one who wished to be alone.

Sam sat down at his desk, declaring scornful indifference to Duncan Peck and his snobbish notions, but his thought ran rather on the discussion just held than on the lesson before him. Notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary, he soon decided that he should not bring Mulcahy round. It wasn’t the fair thing to impose an unwelcome guest upon his room-mate. At the same time he was clearly convinced that Peck’s attitude was unworthy and contrary to the spirit and ideals of the school. If he must choose between Peck’s favor and the friendship of deserving boys who were struggling to overcome the handicap of poverty and make something of themselves, he should not hesitate as to a choice. The steady fellows toiling along the path trodden by Webster and Lincoln were more honorable companions than the sleek, empty-headed brats of the newly rich!

This resolution to keep Mulcahy away from 7 Hale out of consideration for Peck, Sam broke that very day—broke because he couldn’t help himself. Mulcahy would come. To be sure, he had a reason for coming,—to discuss the election of the Laurel Leaf, of which literary society Archer had become a member; but he stayed longer than was necessary for this purpose and talked mainly about himself. Mulcahy was a striking figure in the school. Of good size, with well-poised head and bold, regular features lighted up by brilliant dark eyes, ready of speech and confident in manner, he gave the impression of one who had a distinguished future before him. He had not only the plausibility of a natural politician, but a certain insinuating way of taking another fellow into his confidence as if he alone appreciated the other’s true value. Sam had been captivated by Mulcahy’s winning attentions early in his school career; he believed in him and admired him.

Mulcahy was frankly ambitious. He was bound to lift himself. When he had finished school—he explained to Sam—he meant to study law and get into politics in some large city; he might go to college first if the way opened. He expected to have to work hard to accomplish these ambitions, especially as he believed in going in for the outside things as far as possible—the “Seatonian” and athletics and the literary societies. He tried to keep safely above the scholarship line, and he did well with the influential profs. He belonged to the Christian Fraternity, too; it helped you with the profs to belong to that.

“When you have to fight your own way in the world, you must take advantage of everything that comes along,” he declared.

“It’s a great thing to do that, to educate yourself,” said Sam, enthusiastically. “It develops an ability that puts you ahead when you come to real work in the world.”

Mulcahy looked at him sharply. “Yes, it sounds well, but it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you tried it a month, you’d find out. Lots of fellows in this school look down on us scholarship fellows.”

“Not those whose opinion is worth anything,” answered Sam, promptly. “Not the best fellows, or the profs.”

“The profs don’t count,” said Mulcahy, “and it’s hard to tell who are the best fellows. There’s your room-mate, Peck, for instance. He speaks to me on the street in a kind of condescending way, and he wouldn’t be above taking a crib from me in recitation, but you don’t suppose he’d invite me up here, do you?”

Sam blushed and twisted in his chair; he felt thoroughly ashamed of his room-mate, sufficiently ashamed to report with open indignation the discussion which had recently been held on this very subject. But an instinctive regard for honorable dealing, an instinct which Sam felt even when his faulty reason would have misled him, closed his lips. “I’ve heard him speak highly of Kendrick,” he said, at length finding a clue. “He’s a scholarship man.”

“Kendrick!” ejaculated Mulcahy. “What’s there to him? A common grind who’s had the luck to be taken on the football squad!”

“Why, I thought he was a nice fellow,” remarked Archer, puzzled at Mulcahy’s vehemence. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Oh, he’s good enough as fellows go,” replied Mulcahy, “but it’s always seemed to me a green kind of goodness. He doesn’t know any better.”

“Know any better!” echoed Sam, still puzzled.

“I mean he isn’t very keen,” Mulcahy explained. “His wits are dull. You could take him in as easy as looking. He’s an honest fool, and good-natured.”

Sam did not answer. He was wondering why two fellows with the same hard problems of life to solve shouldn’t sympathize with each other. Mulcahy rose to go.

“I’ll count on you, then, in the election. Of course, I don’t want the office, but we can’t have those fellows running things to suit themselves all the time. It’s contrary to the whole spirit of the place. I wish you’d see Lord and Kendrick and get them with us. They’d bring others.”

“I’ll do all I can,” said Sam, cordially.