In fact, Talbot’s honest eulogy was one of the influences which enabled Thorne to face the unpleasantness of the next two days at school with head high and colors flying. He did not answer the letter because under the circumstances he did not wish to have any correspondence with Westcott’s. The Newbold party did their best to set the ban upon him in school, to brand him as a traitor and expose him to public contempt. The means employed to accomplish this purpose, the misrepresentation, the distorted version of the proceedings at the meeting, spread broadcast, the gathering of an anti-Thorne party by promises and threats, all might interest us, if it belonged in the story. It is the result alone that concerns this narrative. The movement was ill-timed. After two days of practice with a substitute tackle in Thorne’s position, the practical politicians forced the hands of the extremists. On the morning of the Trowbridge-Newbury game, Newbold, driven to the hated course by the overwhelming demand of the school, went morosely to Thorne’s house to ask him to forgive and forget and take his old place in the game. It was too late; Thorne had gone out of town with his father for the day. So Newbury fared to Trowbridge, spiritless through dissensions, and weakened by the absence of the best defensive player in school. Trowbridge met them with a fresh, well-fused eleven, opposed harmony and dash to disunion and blind resistance, got the jump on their adversaries in the line three times out of four, made first downs through the weak tackles almost at will,—and piled up three touch-downs while Newbury was securing one lucky goal from the field. Alderman Skillen left the field in the middle of the second half, disgusted with football and those who had fanned his interest in it. When the score reached seventeen, President John followed the alderman’s example. Newbold, having suffered the humiliation of defeat on the field, returned to school to face cold looks and hear contemptuous comments, and to see Thorne treated as a victim of jealousy who might have saved the day if he had only been allowed to play. But the worst blow was dealt in the meeting for the election of next year’s captain, when the team not only rejected Newbold’s candidate—Newbold himself was a senior—but actually elected Thorne by a seventy per cent vote. And the fickle school loudly acclaimed the choice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XIV THE TROWBRIDGE GAME