the marks on this paper."
"I must say it doesn't seem to me to be fair," said Frost.
"I don't care for any opinion of that kind," retorted Babbitt.
"Then I don't see why you asked me for any at all."
"Well, well," and Babbitt seemed to be struggling with his temper, "you and I won't dispute about it. You've got your work and I've got mine. I asked you about this paper because I thought you'd sympathize with me in my design."
"I can't sympathize with you in it, Prof. Babbitt, and I wish if you're going to give an examination that you would give one of the usual kind, including in the questions, problems that cover the entire year's work, and so get an idea – "
"The idea I want to get will come from the answers to these questions, Frost."
"Then I suppose I couldn't persuade you to make up another paper?"
"No, sir; I'm going to take this to the printer at once, and by to-morrow morning the copies will all be here in my room, where I shall keep them until the hour for the examination."
"I'm sorry you told me about it," said Frost.
"Why?"
"Because I think well of Merriwell and the others – "
"I suppose you'd like to warn them of what's coming."
"Prof. Babbitt!"
Frost spoke in a loud tone; he was evidently very angry.
"Oh, well," exclaimed Babbitt, "don't fly in a rage at that suggestion; of course I know that you won't betray any secrets of the faculty. I simply said that I supposed you'd like to warn that rascal, Merriwell."
"You've no right to think even as much as that!" returned Frost, "but you may be very sure that whatever I wish to do I shall not expose the questions on that paper. Good-day, sir."
"Good-day," said Babbitt, and immediately afterward there was a slamming of a door.
Then Frank heard the professor grumbling to himself, but what he said could not be made out. A little later there was the sound of a door opening and closing again. Prof. Babbitt had doubtless started to the printer's with the examination paper.
Frank then resumed his trip up the chimney. He had heard no sound from Page's room, and he was just as determined as before to turn the joke upon his classmate.
As he passed the level of Prof. Babbitt's room he saw that the fireplace of the chimney had been closed in the same way as in Page's room, but in this case the door was not a secret one, and at the moment it stood partly open. This was what enabled him to hear so plainly the conversation between the instructors.
When he came to the chimney top he squeezed through without much difficulty, and dropped out upon the roof.
The next question was as to getting down to the street, but to an athlete like Frank, there was little difficulty in that problem.
New Haven is often called the City of Elms. There were a number of these and other trees growing about, and one of them extended its branches toward the roof of this house in such a way that Frank could grasp it.
He took hold of it with the idea of climbing along to the trunk of the tree, and then shinning down, but the branch bent under his weight until his feet were not more than ten feet from the ground.
Accordingly Frank let go and came down with nothing more than a bit of a jar. He had landed in the yard beside the house, from which he saw that an alley led between buildings to an adjoining street.
His hands and clothes were grimy with soot.
"If I should go through High Street this way," he thought, "and should meet Page, he'd have the laugh on me in earnest. I'll just skip out the other way, get into my room and clean up and then give him a surprise party."
Accordingly Frank hastened through the alley and so to his room. He met nobody on the way with whom he was acquainted, and as soon as he was in his room he washed his hands and face thoroughly and changed his clothes.
"So, then," he thought in the midst of this operation, "Prof. Babbitt wants to make an example of me, does he, and he knows my weak points, eh?"
"Luckily, I know my own weak points, too, so far as mathematics is concerned, and in the next three days it strikes me that I can do a bit of grinding that will enable me to give the professor a surprise party. If my guess is right as to the kind of examples that will be put on that paper, I shouldn't wonder if I could give the other fellows a lift, too."
Meantime, Harold Page, having made his friend a prisoner in the fireplace, had gone from his room for the purpose of finding some other fellow whom he might bring back to share in the fun of Frank's discomfort.
As his room was at some little distance from the campus, he did not expect to find anybody on the street near it, so he started on a run in the direction of the college, for it was not his intention to keep Frank a prisoner more than a few minutes.
He had not gone very far before he met a classmate, whose name was Mortimer Ford. Ford was not a very popular fellow, although it could not be said that anybody had anything special against him.
He was acquainted with Frank and the particular crowd that chummed with him, and sometimes took part in their doings, but on the whole he was rather outside the circle in which Frank had been a leader from the start.
If Page had had his wish, he would have met Rattleton, or Browning, or Diamond, or some of the others more closely associated with Merriwell, for he knew that they would enjoy the trick with better humor than anybody else.
When he saw Ford his first impulse was to go and look up somebody else, but Ford called out to him:
"Hello, Page, how long have you been back?"
"Oh, I came back a week ago," Page answered, "and engaged a room, got it in order, and then went away again. I came back for good this morning."
"Glad to see you," and Ford shook hands. "What are you hurrying for?"
"Oh, nothing much," responded Page, awkwardly.
"I didn't know but you were trying to run away from that examination that old Babbitt has got up," said Ford. "Say! that is a nasty blow, isn't it?"
"It will bother a good many of us, I reckon."
They were standing on the sidewalk, and while they were talking Page was keeping his eyes out for some other friend.
There were no other students in sight, and he began to feel a little ashamed of the small trick he had played on Frank.
"I guess I'll go and let him out," he thought, "Ford will do as well as anybody else to see the fun."
So he said aloud:
"Come down to my room a minute, Ford; I've got something to show you."
"I wish it was a case of beer," remarked Ford, falling in with him and walking along, "or perhaps it's something better than that?"
"It's nothing to drink, but it's something better than that, just the same."
"Tell you what I wish it was."
