“No, it isn’t,” replied Gerald, shaking his head gently. “It’s politics, but it isn’t rank. It amounts to this, Harry: Kendall hasn’t the push to get himself elected captain if left to his own efforts. But there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be captain if he’s wanted――――” “But he won’t be!” “Not if he’s left to himself, but I intend to see that he is wanted. What I am conducting is a quiet campaign in the interests of Kendall Burtis. If he does his part you’ll find when it comes time to elect a captain for next year that they’ll be crying for Kendall!” Harry viewed the other in rapt and admiring awe for a moment. Then, doubtfully, “But it doesn’t seem to me that he’s got it in him to be a good captain, Gerald. He――he isn’t a leader. I don’t say he can’t play football, for I think he can, although even that’s got to be proved a bit more, hasn’t it? But――well, it takes certain qualities to be a good captain.” “What are they?” “Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Pluck, of course, and brains and――and executive ability――――” “Whatever that is,” laughed Gerald. “Well, you can’t say Kendall hasn’t pluck after the way he went overboard the other day without being able to swim a stroke. And as for brains, well, you think a minute.” Harry nodded. “Yes, he’s got a good thinker, I guess.” “And he can be wonderfully cool in an emergency,” continued Gerald. “How do you know that?” “By the way he stepped out on the field last year at the eleventh hour, grabbed off the grand stand in a pair of long trousers and hustled into a sweater, and stood there and kicked that goal with the whole Broadwood team trying to get through and kill him.” “Y-yes, but――――” “As for the other thing, what you call executive ability and what the rest of us, who haven’t your visiting acquaintance with fine English, call leadership, why, no, he hasn’t displayed any of that yet. He hasn’t had a chance, I guess. That’s something we’ll have to develop in him, or, at least, bring out. And he’s discouragingly shy. He will have to get over some of that. I don’t expect to make him popular in the general meaning of the word. That isn’t necessary. I don’t think you can call Charlie Merriwell a very popular chap.” “He isn’t, and it remains to be seen what sort of a captain he will make. Simms ought to have had it.” “Yes, Simms is popular, but he didn’t get the captaincy. I know of at least two fellows on the team who don’t really like Merriwell and who cast their votes for him because they knew he could play football and believed he’d make a good captain and because they respected him. See? Well, I mean to have Kendall prove that he can play football, show that he can lead, and win the respect of the fellows.” “Gee, you’ve got a job! Sounds like a confidence game to me, too, Gerald. Hanged if you aren’t deliberately setting to work to――to――what’s that word?――to foist a captain on the school that they don’t even know!”