“Back up! Who told you that?”
“Told me what?” asked Myron blankly.
“That you had a right to leave school.”
“Why, no one told me! But it’s so!”
“No, sir, it isn’t,” said Andrew emphatically. “You haven’t any more right to leave school than a soldier has to leave his post, or a policeman his beat. Not a bit more, Myron.”
“That isn’t so,” answered the other excitedly. “It isn’t the same at all. Duty is one thing and—and staying where you don’t get a square deal’s another. My folks have a right to take me away from Parkinson whenever they want to!”
“Have they taken you out?”
“No, they don’t know yet. But they will when I ask them to.”
“That’s all right, then. What your folks do is another matter, old man. It’s what you do that I’m talking about. Why do you say you haven’t had a square deal?”
“Because I haven’t! Look at what Jud did to me! First of all, they made me take too many courses, courses I didn’t want to take at all, some of them. Then when I couldn’t keep them up just as—just as they think I ought to, they came down on me! Jud says I can’t play football. Just because Addicks has it in for me. Addicks calls on me twice as often as any other fellow in class. I hate Latin, anyway. I didn’t want to take it this year. Next year would be time enough. Driscoll made me work like a slave, and I didn’t have time enough for all the things I’m supposed to study, and Jud socked it to me. I’d been trying for a month to get on the team, and now, just when I was sure of a place, Jud springs this! Call that a square deal? I don’t!”