“Or me—” put in Kendrick, fervid, but ungrammatical. “He’s all that—everything but straight.”
“I’ve never seen anything crooked about him,” Sam persisted. “He’s been a very good friend to me. I should think as you’re both in the same boat, you’d sympathize with him.”
“How are we both in the same boat?”
“Why, you both have to rely on yourselves for what you get. You are both scholarship men.”
Kendrick looked relieved. “Is that all you meant! I was afraid you thought we were in some way alike. If that was so, I was going to change right off so as to be different. Mulcahy’s a crook!”
“He’s a friend of mine, if you please,” said Sam, with dignity.
“What has he ever done for you, anything?”
“Yes, he’s helped me with lessons and given me advice.”
“Advice is cheap. You can get it by the hour down in Alsop’s room. If he’s given you free tutoring, that’s something.”
“It hasn’t been very much,” confessed Sam. “I didn’t need it.”