"The school couldn't buy it. They've nothing to buy it with."
"Then you have a perfect right to sell it to somebody else," put in Mr. Carter quickly. "In the world of business, people cannot expect to get something for nothing. What you can't pay for you can't have. If the school has no money—" he broke off with a significant gesture. "Now if I offered you fellows a lump sum in June—a sum you could divide amongst you as you saw fit—wouldn't that be a perfectly fair and legitimate business deal?"
"I—I—" faltered Paul.
"Wouldn't it?" Mr. Carter persisted.
"I suppose so," murmured Paul unwillingly. "Only, you see, I still feel that the paper should go to the school. I think the other fellows would feel so too."
Nettled Mr. Carter rose and strode irritably across the room and back. Then he came to a standstill before Paul's chair and looked down with steely eyes into the lad's troubled face.
"But you admitted just now that you and the staff had made the paper what it is, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Then it belongs to you, doesn't it?"
"In a certain sense; yes."