Despite his frequent rants against the phoniness of everyone else Holden is at times a bit of a phony himself. While he is constantly telling the reader all of his thoughts and how he's upset that more people don't speak their minds, there are a few circumstances where he hides his true thoughts. One of the times when Holden is the most phony is when he is talking to Ernest Morrow's mother on the train to New York from Pencey. Holden harbors very negative feelings for Ernest and calls him " doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school" but despite holding such disdain for Ernest he still cannot bring himself to talk bad about a child directly to his mother. In fact Holden goes further than just not talking bad about Ernest but actually reassuring Mrs. Morrow that her child was a great guy who everyone wanted to be class president. You could argue that Holden is playing the long con just to me...