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 "Do you think the school could get anybody better than George Praska?" Perry demanded hotly.

"No. But rushing through an election just to seat our own candidate would make a bad precedent. This year it would give us Praska. But how about next year, or the year after? We've got to think of the school. You and Praska and I will be through here in a year or so, but the school will be here long after we're out. That's what count's—not to-morrow, but a long line of to-morrows."

Perry was silent. "I guess you're right," he said at last. Littlefield flashed him a look of approval. The abrupt manner in which he had surrendered an unsound theory was indication of what Northfield was doing for its young citizen.

But though Perry had surrendered, he could not stifle a secret regret. He had developed an uncanny knack of interpreting popular sentiment. The sharp brain, functioning above his thin, bony body, seemed able to read what a group might be thinking. He knew that, at the moment, Praska was the choice of the school. But the moment would pass. Other candidates would be brought forward—it was in the nature of things that this should happen. And shrewd instinct told him that certainty passed out of an election