“No need of it. What I want to say I can say just as well with you here, Osgood, old man.”
“We were having a little private talk of our own when you butted in,” said Shultz sourly.
“When I’m through there’ll be plenty of time for you to finish up. I won’t be long, and I’ll get out the minute I’ve had my say. It’s about this wretched scrape—about Hooker.”
“It is a wretched scrape,” agreed Osgood. “I’m greatly disturbed over it, and of course you must be also, Piper. What are we to do?”
“That’s just what I want to talk to Shultz about. Something has got to be done, and that pretty quick, too. It strikes me that Shultz is the fellow to do it.”
The boy named swung round and squared himself, his red lips pressed together, his eyes staring straight at Billy from beneath lowered brows. “I suppose,” he began harshly, “you think you’re going to shoulder the whole business onto me. If you do, you want to forget it, and forget it quick. I’m no more to blame than the rest of the bunch. It’s true I hit Hooker a poke, but he brought it on himself, and you know it. He accused me of cheating.”
“It was your blow that knocked him against that mantelpiece and dazed him so that he hasn’t been able to talk or remember. In stating that the truth was sure to come out soon, Professor Richardson was doubtless correct.”
“Ah, don’t talk to me about that old dried-up shrimp!” cried Shultz fiercely. “He practically owned up before the whole school that he was a back number. He’s no more fit to be the principal of Oakdale Academy than I am—nor half as much. It’s time he retired and let a younger and better man fill his place.”
“I didn’t come here to argue that point. I say he was right in asserting that the truth about Hooker is bound to come out. Now are you going to wait and let the facts be found out through some other channel, or are you going to brace up and make a clean breast of it?”
“Now wouldn’t that be fine!” sneered Shultz. “You want me to blow the whole thing, do you? You want me to come out and tell the general public that a bunch of us were here in Ned’s rooms gambling, and that in a quarrel over the cards I hit Roy Hooker. Do you think for a minute that by doing so I’ll make you stand better in the public eye?”