He had thrown himself back into a chair, perhaps a little too elaborately at his ease. Lindsay spoke again. "We're not here in Harry's interests, Dave," he said quietly, "we're here in the interests of the school. We believe you have the better chance of being elected president, but there's a matter that we should like to have explained. We want the president of the class to be a fellow above suspicion in every way, and we want to ask you whether it is true that you were seen to cheat in the examination in English Thirteen?"
Ellis looked at him with well-assumed indignation. "I? Cheat?" he echoed; "well, I guess not. Who the devil dares to say such a thing as that about me? I'll punch his head for him."
Lindsay turned to Randall. "Fire away, Dick," he said.
Dick did not flinch, but looked Ellis squarely in the eye. "I was telling these fellows, Dave," he said, "that I didn't think you were the man to represent the class as president. I've told no one else, but I've told them, in confidence, what you did in the English Thirteen exam. That you first asked me for help, and then cribbed from that paper up your sleeve--"
He got no further. Ellis leaped to his feet, his face white with wrath. "You liar!" he cried.
Dick in his turn started from his seat, his face as angry as Ellis' own. "Hold on," he cried sternly. "I don't like that word, Dave. You'd better take that back."
Ellis sneered. "Not by a long shot," he answered, "that's what you are. And how you've got the nerve to start a story like that--"
Dick drew a little piece of paper from his pocket, and handed it to the boy he was accusing. "You didn't pass me that in the exam?" he demanded.
Ellis' denial was almost too ready. "Of course I didn't," he flung back, "that's not my writing. I never saw the paper before. I never cheated in an examination in my life. You're playing dirty politics, Randall, to help Allen; that's what you're doing. But you can go ahead. It won't hurt me. I'll tell the story myself, to every boy in the school, and they can judge who's lying, and who isn't. You'd like to see me in a scrape, I guess, so you might have a chance at the Pentathlon, with me out of it. Oh, I'm on to you and your schemes--"