“Just what I say. Within half an hour he has charged me with being brutal and criminal to the last degree.”
“There must be some mistake,” stammered Lee, “some misunderstanding—certainly he—”
“None at all,” interrupted Parmenter, rising from his chair and walking the floor savagely. “He did it knowingly, deliberately, cruelly, in the presence of the entire faculty.”
A light dawned suddenly upon Lee’s mind. “Was it about the hazing?” he asked.
“Of course about the hazing. He had nothing else to bully me for. It was his last chance to put me down and clear the way for others.”
The fire that had been smoldering in Parmenter’s breast was beginning to break out uncontrollably.
Lee’s face turned pale again. He was making an effort to hold himself in check.
“Don’t be unjust, Fred,” he said quietly. “You know that opposition to hazing is father’s hobby, if he has one, and you should make allowance for what he says in his excitement. But if you mean to insinuate that father is trying to push me up at your expense, I want you—”
“I mean to insinuate nothing,” interrupted Parmenter, hotly. “I say plainly that there seems to be a powerful effort in some quarters to make me the scapegoat for the sins of the whole class.”