“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.”