done, the real trouble with the Safety Committee was Lee Merritt's leadership. A word, a hint, and forces could have been set to work in the Congress that would speedily have forced Merritt to resign. Hostile criticism would have engulfed him. Yet Praska had no heart for so ruthless a course. Had the chairman of the Safety Committee been purposely lax, Praska would have fought him without mercy. But Merritt was acting to-day as he would act to-morrow and all through his life—wabbling when he should have been firm, hesitating when every necessity called for prompt action, afraid, even when he was in the right, to touch the quick of fortune and take his chances. Merritt should not have been chairman of anything. He lacked the essential strength. The fault lay with the school itself for ever having signalled him out and given him power.
And so when the Congress, composed of delegates from all the home rooms, met soberly and seriously that afternoon, there was a woeful lack of suggestion, a pitiable attempt to carry an air of faith in what they were doing. Merritt sat there, making notes, wrinkling his forehead in thought, blindly unaware of the glances of doubt and perplexity that were bent on him by boy delegates and by girl delegates. Presently, with the
