“I’m going to send my _Lit_ home to my family to show them what we can do here,” he said. “My aunt is stuck on poetry, and she’s got a notion that we don’t do anything here but play ball. This will set her right. Good night.” “Oh, don’t bother them with it,” called Marchmont; but Lindsay was already out of hearing. CHAPTER VIII POLITICS 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?”