Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/29

 think about the team, and Room 13, andOh, darn it, Perry, if I could only be sure of you."

Perry turned from him and walked away.

Mr. Banning was tall and spare, with hollows in his cheeks and along his neck behind his ears. His frame did not fit well into clothes—there were too many sharp corners to his being. His coat hung baggily from his shoulders; his trousers had a habit of bunching at the bottom where their legs came in contact with his shoes. But looking at his face you forgot his clothes. In his eyes was something that held you. In them was the fire, the vision, the enthusiasm of the dreamer.

There was a rapt look in his eyes this morning. Room 13 was finding that instead of being simply a school room it was a community. Young citizens of the future were having their first taste of participating in their own government. When the idea of the home room had been broached among the teachers, Mr. Banning had been quick to support the plan. He saw in it a chance to make the high school students feel that they were, in fact as well as name, citizens of the American commonwealth.

And so, when Room 13 had filled that morning, he had tried to overcome the strangeness that usually sits on boys face to face with a new venture. He had told them that, in so far as