Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/74

 sense of loyalty. A voice cried the summons for a cheer. It started as a weak straggle, gained volume, and finished with a burst of sound. A cry went up for "Speech! Speech!" This was followed by the chant "We want Johnny Baffin! We want Johnny Baffin!"

Johnny stumbled to his feet. If consternation was the portion of the others, stupefaction was his. He looked blank, abashed, almost frightened. The fingers of one hand played nervously with the buttons on his coat.

"I think," he began with trembling voice, "that there must be a mistake"

"Not a bit of it," roared a voice. Oh, but the room was rising to scratch beautifully.

"There is a mistake," Johnny cried, for once in his life positive. "I don't want to be president. I wouldn't know how to do things. This is all Praska's work. He came to my house last night, and he got to talking about ballots—you know how he is when he starts talking something like that—and he said it was a mistake because anybody might win, and I said I knew I wouldn't win because I wouldn't even vote for myself because I'd mess everything if I were president. And then he said he could go out and get me enough votes to elect me. I didn't know what he would do, and I was afraid he might do something, and I told