had looked up with a start of surprise at first; now he drew back and looked the professor in the eye, defiantly.
"Don't you say anything to me, sir," exclaimed the professor, sharply.
"I hadn't thought of saying anything," responded Frank, in a dignified way.
"Keep quiet, sir! what have you got in your hand?"
"My pencils."
"You're impudent, sir; I mean, of course, your other hand."
Frank's face turned first pale, and then red, and then pale again; all the students and assistants in the room were looking at him. He knew that the professor suspected him of some low trick, and it cut him deep to think that he should be accused in this public way.
"I've got a piece of blank paper there," he said, slowly, "on which I have been working out the last problem."
"Oh, indeed," returned the professor, sarcastically. "A piece of blank paper, eh? You're quite sure it was a piece of blank paper?"
"It was until I began to figure on it."
"Oh, you're quite sure of that?"
"I am, sir."
"And I can tell you, and I'll make an example of you to the whole class in so doing, that when you thought to conceal that paper by crumpling it up in your hand, I caught sight of the under side of it."
Frank made no response. He had not the slightest idea what the professor was driving at.
"I tell you, I saw what it was in an instant," added the professor.
"Very well, sir," said Frank, rather sharply, "I've nothing to say."
"Oh, you haven't! Very well, then, what's that?"
The professor pointed to the printed examination paper which lay on the desk in plain sight.
"I don't intend to be treated like a schoolboy, sir," exclaimed Frank, starting to rise, and making an effort to draw his hand away from the professor's. "If you have any accusation to make against me, you can lay it before the faculty, but I will not sit here to be browbeaten and insulted in this fashion."
He drew his hand away, but in so doing made no effort to keep his grip on the paper that he had used for figuring.
The professor snatched the paper as it was falling, smoothed it out, and held it up before the entire class.
"You see, young gentlemen," he cried, "Merriwell has been doing his examples on the back of one of the stolen examination papers."
Frank fairly gasped when he saw that this was the fact.
When the professor had announced that the two papers were missing, he had looked with the utmost care all through his desk to see whether one of the missing papers had somehow got laid down there, and was certain that only one had been given to him; yet here was one of the papers, and he had been unconsciously working out an example on the back of it.
"We shall lay this matter before the faculty at once," said Prof. Babbitt, sternly; "and meantime, Merriwell, you may leave the room."
CHAPTER VI
THE PROFESSOR'S CASE
Frank held his head high as he walked out of the room. There was a flush upon his face, but nothing there or in his manner to indicate his real feelings.
They were in truth very much confused. He was simply bewildered at the discovery of one of the examination papers on his desk.
How it got there he could not imagine. His heart burned with rage at the way in which Prof. Babbitt accused him in the presence of all the class, and he felt, too, how hopeless it would be to clear himself in the face of this damaging evidence.
Expulsion would follow, unless there could be some explanation of the matter.
Frank knew that he could explain nothing, and the thought of the disgrace that awaited him was very hard to bear. With it all, however, there was a consciousness of absolute innocence that gave him strength to leave the room much as if nothing had happened.
"My best friends will know that I am not guilty of any such conduct," he reflected, "and the rest of them may think as they like."
At the outside door of the hall, he paused, in doubt as to what he should do next. Knowing that Babbitt, already disliking him, would insist on his expulsion, Frank was inclined to go straight to his room and pack up his belongings.
The event had made everything about the college extremely distasteful to him, but it was only for a moment, and then he realized how sad he would feel at having to go away from good old Yale forever.
"It won't do," he said to himself, emphatically. "I must make some kind of effort to clear myself; there's no hope of persuading Babbitt that I'm innocent, but there must be members of the faculty who would believe me, and it would not be right to go away without trying to show them that I've been straight in this. If I should leave without making the hardest kind of a defense, everybody would be justified in believing me guilty."
With this thought in mind, Frank debated for a moment whether it would not be well to go straight to the office of the dean and tell him all he could about it.
"That won't do," he concluded, "because Prof. Babbitt will report the matter to the dean at once, and if I should go there first, it would look as if I were trying to get an advantage by assuming frankness. No, the only thing to do is to go over to the room and wait there until I'm summoned; that will come soon enough, but I wish the summons were here now."
Frank's wish was gratified. He had just come to a decision as to what he should do, and was going down the steps of the hall when one of the instructors who had acted as an assistant at the examination came hurrying after him.
"Merriwell, wait a moment," he said.
Frank turned and touched his hat.
The instructor looked worried, and his voice trembled a little as, laying his hand on Frank's shoulder, he said:
"Merriwell, Prof. Babbitt has sent me to tell you to report at the dean's office as soon as the examination is over."
"Very well," Frank responded, "I'll be there."
"I hope," added the instructor, hesitatingly, as he looked earnestly into Frank's eyes "that there's an explanation of this thing, Merriwell."
"So do I," Frank responded, "but what it is, is more than I can tell now."
The instructor sighed and returned to the examining room.
Frank saw several students approaching whom he knew and, not caring to have any conversation with them, he started away at a rapid pace. There was a full half hour to pass before the examination would come to an end.
He put it in by walking about the city at such a distance from the college buildings that he was not likely to meet any acquaintances.
It was a dreary walk, for all the time he suffered the thought of disgrace as well as the maddening perplexity that accompanied the discovery of the examination paper on his desk.
"One might almost think," he reflected, "that Babbitt had
