"No, I really don't think so," Bruce said, and then he entered carefully upon the stock arguments of the Crown. They had no effect upon Stoddard. At the schoolroom Bruce parted from his friend good-naturedly.
"Well, you'd better think it over, Frank," he urged.
Stoddard lived rather out of the school world, and a good many things went on of which he knew nothing. The day after his friendly little walk with Bruce, however, Nat Belmont opened his eyes. Nat Belmont was shrewd and rather sharp-tongued, and took the cynical interest of an observing outsider in the doings of the Crown. He admired Rupert Ormsby, and having noticed the increasing friendship between Ormsby and Stoddard, he came up to Stoddard before dinner one day, and said:—
"It looks as if the Crown was going to lick Rupert for president."
"How do you mean?" asked Stoddard.
"Why, don't you know? They're going round, buttonholing everybody and asking
