it's spread like fire."

"That's all right, fellows," replied Frank nonchalantly, as they parted
at the school. But just the same Frank was doing a lot of thinking.
"Suppose the decent fellows should leave the Club! Suppose it got a
rowdy name!

"But," he went on, "Father Boone knows how things are, and he'll
straighten them out. But can he? What he knows, he does not know, for
all intents and purposes. He can't use what he got in confession, and
that's all he got. He may know that I am right. That settles something.
But how about my mother, and the others?"

These reflections came to Frank as he was going upstairs to his class
room. It was a relief to know that his teacher had some confidence in
him. Some of the boys gave him sly looks and one or two made
insinuations. At recess, however, he met his real ordeal. First one,
then two, and at length a dozen or more had gathered around him.

"Well, fellows, you are getting a good show, I hope," laughed Frank,
with a forced grin. As they kept on staring he added, in a tone trying
to be pleasant, "Movies free today."

Outside the circle someone called, "What's up over there?"

The reply cut him through and through. "That's the goody-good kid that
got caught in the roughneck stuff over at the Club."

If a thrust were made designedly in order to inflict exquisite pain, it
could not have served the purpose better. Frank moved off with hot iron
in his very flesh. He knew that the last word in contempt among boys was
that same "goody-good." It implied everything that he detested. With the
boys it meant a girlish goodness, a sort of "softy." That hurt him. Of
course, in a school where there were nearly a thousand boys, he was
known only to his own set. He was not thinking of them, but of the great
crowd who knew him but slightly, and who would credit what they heard.
And out over the whole yard had rung those words, "goody-good!" And on
the top of that, to be called a "roughneck!"

In class the next hour, the recess and its every incident occupied
Frank's whole mind. Every word and look was rehearsed over and over
again. He was called on for recitation, but his name had to be repeated
before he responded. When he did reply, he appeared like one just out of
a trance. The hour of class seemed very long.

At noon, he delayed going out in order not to face the crowd. When he
thought that most of the boys had gone, he went out into the street. His
face was burning. He fancied