Sam raised a hand. “Listen, Tom! Listen, all you fellows! We might as well understand that that’s the yarn the whole school has had. And hammering up three or four who talk out loud won’t disprove it.... Wait a minute, Step! Let me finish. I’ve got a score or two to settle, but this isn’t the time to do it. It’s perfectly clear Ed Zorn is at the bottom of the trouble—he’s the only one who heard what was said in the hall. He’s been busy, making mischief. Some day I’ll try to attend to him, but there’s somebody else to think of first, and that’s the Trojan. What’s to be done about him, and for him? He’s agreed not to make a bolt without letting us know, but it seems to me it’s up to us to fix things so he’ll be willing to stay.”
“Say, that’s going to be a contract!” Step exclaimed.
The others nodded agreement.
“It’s the Latin that’s the facer—outside of his feelings,” said Herman Boyd gravely. “He’ll be flunked, if he can’t go to recitations, especially with a zero mark for the test to pull down his term stand.”
The Shark was scowling behind his spectacles. “Let’s do some figuring,” he suggested. “How were his marks up to this mix-up?”
“Oh, fair—along in the eighties,” said Herman.
“What do you mean by ‘along’?”
“Call it eighty-five or eighty-six.”
“How much does a test count?”
“About the same as a week’s recitations,” said Herman, but Step offered “Ten days” almost simultaneously.