"Yes," declared Dick, "to one on the outside it looks bad for you. That Dunn kid told everybody that you were over to see his father and then someone else blabbed what happened in the Club, that you owned up to knowing all about it. Putting two and two together, they have built up an ugly story, and it's spread like fire."
"That's all right, fellows," replied Frank nonchalantly, as they parted at the school. But just the same Frank was doing a lot of thinking. "Suppose the decent fellows should leave the Club! Suppose it got a rowdy name!
"But," he went on, "Father Boone knows how things are, and he'll straighten them out. But can he? What he knows, he does not know, for all intents and purposes. He can't use what he got in confession, and that's all he got. He may know that I am right. That settles something. But how about my mother, and the others?"
These reflections came to Frank as he was going upstairs to his class room. It was a relief to know that his teacher had some confidence in him. Some of the boys gave him sly looks and one or two made insinuations. At recess, however, he met his real ordeal. First one, then two, and at length a dozen or more had gathered around him.
"Well, fellows, you are getting a good show, I hope," laughed Frank, with a forced grin. As they kept on staring he added, in a tone trying to be pleasant, "Movies free today."
Outside the circle someone called, "What's up over there?"
The reply cut him through and through. "That's the goody-good kid that got caught in the roughneck stuff over at the Club."
If a thrust were made designedly in order to inflict exquisite pain, it could not have served the purpose better. Frank moved off with hot iron in his very flesh. He knew that the last word in contempt among boys was that same "goody-good." It implied everything that he detested. With the boys it meant a girlish goodness, a sort of "softy." That hurt him. Of course, in a school where there were nearly a thousand boys, he was known only to his own set. He was not thinking of them, but of the great crowd who knew him but slightly, and who would credit what they heard. And out over the whole yard had rung those words, "goody-good!" And on the top of that, to be called a "roughneck!"
In class the next hour, the recess and its every incident occupied Frank's whole mind. Every word and look was rehearsed over and over again. He was called on for recitation, but his name had to be repeated before he responded. When he did reply, he appeared like one just out of a trance. The hour of class seemed very long.
At noon, he delayed going out in order not to face the crowd. When he thought that most of the boys had gone, he went out into the street. His face was burning. He fancied everyone he met was looking at him. He could almost hear passersby say "goody-good" and "roughneck."