“Oh! Are we?”
“You are. The whole school believes you’re a crowd of cheats and tattletales.”
Sam kept his temper, and that he did so was proof of the discipline he had had in self-mastery. Moreover, it had flashed upon him that it was his business to learn, so far as he might, the purpose of Zorn in the campaign he had waged against the club. Purely as a matter of preference he would have chosen to resort then and there to violence, but a fight would cut short the explanation he so greatly desired. So he said, quietly enough:
“There’s no truth in it. Nobody knows that better than you do.”
“I know you gave Walker away.”
“I had no such intention.”
“And he’s under sentence for breaking rules and then lying about what he’d done.”
“Walker neither broke rules nor lied.”
Zorn shrugged contemptuously. “Oh, what’s the use, Parker? You can sing that song till you’re black in the face, and it’ll do you no good. You’re in a hole, and you can’t get yourself or your crowd out. You’ve got to have the helping hand, I tell you, and I’m the only fellow who can extend it to you.”
“Meaning that as you started all the lies about us, nobody but you can stop ’em?”