"I had a hard time to keep from
hitting him," said West afterwards, "but I knew that would be the worst
thing I could possibly do." "Maybe so," sighed Mr. Fyne, apparently not
with full conviction. Winter went too far in moving that the president's
continuance in office was prejudicial to the welfare of Blaines College,
and was defeated 9 to 3. Nevertheless, West always looked back at this
meeting as one of the most unpleasant incidents in his life. He flung
out of it humiliated, angry, and thoroughly sick at heart.
West saw himself as a persecuted patriot, who had laid a costly oblation
on the altar of public spirit only to see the base crowd jostle forward
and spit upon it. He was poor in this world's goods. It had cost him
five thousand a year to accept the presidency of Blaines College. And
this was how they rewarded him. To him, as he sat long in his office
brooding upon the darkness of life, there came a visitor, a tall,
angular, twinkling-eyed, slow-speaking individual who perpetually chewed
an unlighted cigar. He was Plonny Neal, no other, the reputed great
chieftain of city politics.
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