Yards was no more successful with his communication to the newspapers. The _Mail_ hid it away in the bottom corner of the market page, where Yards himself had difficulty in discovering it. The _Trumpeter_ sandwiched it in between a letter on Esperanto and another from an opponent of the battle-ship programme. As few who read the sports pages know of the existence of the correspondence column, and no one who reads the letters cares anything about sports, Yards’s chance of undoing the impression made by President John’s friends was about one in a thousand. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XII PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS 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.