“My voice! What good is that to me? Can I make gestures with my voice? How can a man do anything with his arm in a sling and his shoulders bound up as if he were a mummy?” Parmenter was excited. He felt that hitherto his success on the platform had been largely due to the training he had had in what is called “presence” and his skill in gestures. That effect would now be totally destroyed. “You might learn to use your left arm,” suggested Lee, as a forlorn hope. “Bah! You know better than that, Charley. I’m out, that’s all. There’s only one redeeming feature about the whole business; and that is, that you’ll carry off first prize now for all the trouble I shall give you.” For a minute Lee was at a loss for an answer. He also was a candidate for the prize stage. They had agreed that each was to strive to obtain the honor to the best of his ability; but the rivalry was so friendly that neither would have accepted an appointment at the expense of the other. At the same time, it would have been a great pleasure to either to have the other carry off the prize. After a while Lee said, casting his eyes down on his friend’s bandaged shoulder and plastered head: “That was a cowardly thing for Van Loan to do, wasn’t it? Dangerous, too. Why, just think of it! It might have cracked your skull!” “Pity it hadn’t!” growled Parmenter. “Then there’d have been no question about my being an idiot. As it is--well, I’ve two years in which to get even with him. I think I can manage to make it up to him in that time.” After a minute he added, “Did the Freshies carry sticks this morning, Charley?” “Every one of ’em,” said Lee. “They all went down town last night after the row, and what canes they couldn’t raise money enough to buy, they begged or borrowed. They’re tremendously proud and joyous this morning--especially Van Loan. He thinks he’s the biggest toad in the puddle now, sure.” Parmenter turned savagely toward the wall, and winced with the pain the movement caused him; but he said nothing. After a little Lee reverted to the prize-speaking contest. He had been thinking about it all the time. “Don’t be discouraged about that prize-speaking, Fred,” he said. “Go ahead with it. Put it through. Never mind the gestures. They’re only a useless ornament, anyway. Why, you know--what’s his name?--that great orator, you remember; he never used gestures; disdained ’em; laid himself out on voice and expression, you know, and swayed the hearts of multitudes by his eloquent and thrilling--” “Oh, tell that to the marines! Here, I want to get up. Give me a lift, will you, Charley? and help me on with my clothes.” Parmenter had no great faith in the possibility of successful oratory without gestures, but Lee’s idea struck him as worth considering, after all; and the more he thought about it, the more he was inclined toward it.