In fact, if thinking was all Roger was expected to do, Dunn’s mission of malice was wholly successful. Roger did think, lying awake an hour after he went to bed, and fighting vainly against an insistent mental activity that would not be cajoled by firm resolutions or new arrangements of pillow; but the direction which his thoughts took was different from what Jason had anticipated. A week before, he would have ridiculed the idea of his being made captain; his ambition did not fly so high. Now, when the opportunity had come and gone, when the honor which, it seemed, had been almost within his reach, was bestowed upon another, he understood how much he should have prized it. Why had Talbot interfered against him? Surely not from ill-will, for the record of the season proved him as stanch a friend as an insignificant new boy ever acquired; nor from personal liking for Horr—they belonged to wholly different sets in school. It must be, then, that Pete regarded him as incompetent for the position. Moreover, if Pete thought so, it was probably true; he was just a meek, harmless, flabby sort of fellow who happened to be able to play a fair game at end, but wasn’t fit for leadership! Dunn’s shot had wounded, but not in the spot at which it was aimed. Hardie’s self-esteem was hurt, not his trust in Pete. The next morning he turned over the subject again as he dressed. “Pete was right to think as he did, and yet he was wrong,” he said to himself. “I should have made just as good a captain as Horr. The trouble with me is that I’m always waiting for some one to recognize me and push me forward. I haven’t confidence enough in myself; there’s where I’ve got to change. I can do things when I have to. Why do I always act as if I couldn’t?” He rode into town that morning with Mike. Mike’s society was usually a pleasure. His mind was always brimful of the present. He knew exactly what he thought on all the matters that entered into his experience, and exactly what he wanted to do. Mike never hesitated through bashfulness, nor wasted opportunities because of lack of faith to accept them! “You ought to have been football captain,” declared Mike, as they stood on the back platform of a crowded in-bound car. “You’d make a lot better one than Horr. Horr really doesn’t know the game. I told Pete Talbot so, too. They needn’t think that because you’re quiet, you haven’t any push in you. I know better!” “Thank you for your good opinion, Mike,” returned the smiling Hardie. “What did Pete do, fire you out?” “No, he said he didn’t know but I was right. It ’ud have been fine to have a captain at Adams’s. We haven’t had one since I’ve been in school. There’s no one else there who’ll ever come near it.” He stopped, and a sudden gleam flashed over his face. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he exclaimed, “make the crew and be crew captain. That’ll be better yet!” Roger laughed aloud. “Make the Harvard Varsity, why don’t you say? I may make the pair-oar if I’m lucky.”