There was the idea, fairly out and vastly alluring. The kindly directors
pressed it home. No doubt they, as well as Plonny Neal, appreciated that
Blaines College did not give the young man a fair field for his talents;
and certainly they knew with admiration the articles with which he
sometimes adorned the columns of their paper. Of all the directors, they
now pointed out, he had stood closest to Colonel Cowles, and was most
familiar with the traditions and policies of the _Post_. Their urgings
increased in force and persistence; perhaps they felt encouraged by a
certain want of finality in the young man's tone; and at length West was
compelled to make yet another statement.
He was, he explained, utterly disconcerted at the turn the discussion
had taken, and found the situation so embarrassing that he must ask his
friends, the directors, to extricate him from it at once. The editorship
of the _Post_ was an office which he, personally, had never aspired to,
but it would be presumption for him to deny that he regarded it as a
post which would reflect honor upon any one. He was willing to admit, in
this confidential circle, moreover, that he had taken up college work
chiefly with the ambition of assisting Blaines over a critical year or
two in its history, and that, to put it only generally, he was not
indefinitely bound to his present position.
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