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Of course, I was a novice then in the world of politics and had not yet realized that such men are, above all, likeable.

When Mr. Hundert goes to visit Senator Bell in Washington, D.C., he becomes nervous when confronted with the grandeur of the capital buildings, but the senator puts him at ease with his friendliness. As a young man, Mr. Hundert seems taken aback by how much attention and kindness the senator bestows on him. As a grown man writing the story, Mr. Hundert reflects that he has come to understand that the skill most leaders share is that they are good at getting people to like them and so as a younger man he shouldn't have been surprised by Bell's over-the-top, and likely manipulative, friendliness.

The best of my own teachers had been tyrants. I well remembered this. Yet at that moment I felt an inexplicable pity for the boy. Was it simply the humiliation we had both suffered at the hands of his father?  

As Mr. Hundert realizes that Sedgewick is cheating in the first “Mr. Julius Caesar” contest, a flood of thoughts moves through his mind as he tries to decide what to do. He reflects that logically, he knew he should be tough on Sedgewick for cheating, but for a reason he cannot explain, he also felt like he should help the boy. Even now in his retirement when he writes the story, he questions why he would have felt pity for the boy, and why such an emotion overshadowed all that he had learned and the tenets by which he claimed to live. In his quest to absolve himself of any deviation from morality, Mr. Hundert focuses on Senator Bell as the potential cause of not only his own faltering but also of Sedgewick’s need to cheat in order to succeed.

Planning a course was like going into battle, and hiring a new teacher was like crowning a king. Whenever one of our ranks retired or left for another school, the different factions fought tooth and nail to influence the appointment. I was the dean of academics . . .and these skirmishes naturally were waged around my foxhole.

After Sedgewick graduates, Mr. Hundert begins to climb the ladder of St. Benedict's, rising to higher positions in the administration over time. Throughout the entire story, Mr. Hundert often compares the faculty operations at St. Benedict's to battles for power, much like war. The fighting, however, is not with weapons, but instead through discussions in which colleagues form alliances and band together. As he rose through the ranks of administration, Mr. Hundert became more involved and influential in these discussions. These comparisons also illustrate Mr. Hundert’s sense of self-importance in his role as an educator, as well as his inflated view of St. Benedict’s as a venerable institution.

It is a largely unexplored element of history, of course, and one that has long fascinated me, that a great deal of political power and thus a great deal of the arc of nations arises not from intellectual advancements nor social imperatives but from the simple battle of wills among men at tables, such as had just occurred between Charles Ellerby and me.

When Ellerby confronts Mr. Hundert about the gun that is rumored to be in his desk, Mr. Hundert stares him down until he gives up and leaves. The moment mirrors a scene earlier in the story when Mr. Hundert can't meet young Sedgewick's gaze, with the exception being that Mr. Hundert is the victor in this showdown of wills. However, unlike Sedgewick, whose confidence is bolstered by his ability to lie his way into power, Mr. Hundert feels some devastation at this realization that being powerful relies less on honor than it does on the brute strength of one's will.

Next section Quotes That Drive the Plot

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