CHAPTER V
ONE OF THE MISSING PAPERS
Three or four minutes passed while the assistants were distributing some papers. Then one of them approached the professor and said:
"I need two more for my section, sir."
"Well," said the professor, looking around the room, "if you're short two, somebody must have two to spare."
Nobody said anything.
"Which of you," asked the professor of his assistants, "has two more papers than necessary."
No one answered. Prof. Babbitt looked very savage.
"I counted that bundle of papers just as soon as it came from the printers," he said, sharply, "and there was just the number called for. The printers never make a mistake, and I'm sure they haven't this time."
Still there was silence in the room.
"Gentlemen," said the professor, this time addressing the students, "see if any of you have an extra paper accidentally stuck to the one on your desk; there must be two spare papers here somewhere in the room."
Every student took up his paper, felt of it, shook it, but without result; the room was certainly two papers short, and two students sat, therefore, with nothing to do.
The professor frowned.
"I'm certain," he exclaimed, "that I made no miscount. Mr. Jackson," turning to one of the assistants, "count the students here."
Mr. Jackson counted and found that there were one hundred and forty-six.
"That's it," said Prof. Babbitt, "and I had one hundred and forty-six papers. This is very extraordinary."
He glared savagely about the room, his glance resting longest upon the desk where Merriwell sat. Frank was already busily engaged in working out the first problem.
Most of the other students had already gone to work, but some of them were idly watching to see what the professor was going to do, and hoping that he would postpone the whole examination.
This may have been in his mind; but if so, he thought better of it.
"We shall have to go on," he said, presently. "I will write out two papers for those who are short."
He did so, and in the course of a few minutes all the students were at work.
Frank could not help but smile when, after a rapid glance at the problems on the paper, he saw that he had hit exactly the subject chosen by the professor to floor him. The questions were all confined to the one topic which he and his friends had been studying on.
"Now, unless they lose their heads," he thought, "they'll all write a perfect paper."
He had previously warned them not to be in a hurry during the examination.
According to the custom at Yale a written examination of this kind lasts for three hours, that is, three hours is the longest time during which any student is allowed to work at the problems.
If he has not finished in that time, he has to stop. If, however, he should get through the paper in less time, he has the right to withdraw from the room.
"Now boys," Frank had said, "if you find that you can work all the problems take them slowly, so that you make sure that you get them right, and then, if you get through before the time is up, hang around a while.
"It might cause the professor to think queer things if he should see us get up after an hour and a half or so and walk out; he would wonder how we did it, and of course we don't want to let him suspect that we crammed on one topic."
The boys understood the wisdom of this advice, and Frank's only anxiety now was lest Rattleton or Page should get excited at the ease of the paper and write too hurriedly.
The others he knew would be cool.
Believing that the professor would watch him more narrowly than anybody else, he made a good deal of pretense at being puzzled over his problems, and worked each one out separately on a piece of paper before transferring the problem on the paper which was to be passed in as his examination.
There was nothing very unusual in this method, for most of the other students did much the same thing. The only point about it is that it was unnecessary in this case for Frank to do it at all, because the problems were so familiar that he could have worked each one out at the first trial.
Early in the examination Ford, who had a seat in the back part of the room, raised his hand.
Prof. Babbitt saw him and nodded.
The raising of the hand implied that Ford wanted to ask a question. He was a favorite with Prof. Babbitt naturally, and so the professor gave him leave to go up to the desk and make his inquiry.
Ford walked down the aisle with an examination paper in his hand, and as he passed Frank's desk his hand struck a little pile of blank papers that happened to be lying on the very edge, and knocked it to the floor.
He stooped quickly, saying: "Excuse me," in a low voice, and replaced the papers.
Prof. Babbitt, of course, was looking that way at the moment.
"You would do your work just as well, Merriwell," he exclaimed, sharply, "if you didn't spread it all over your desk. Your examples won't work out any easier for taking up the whole room with them."
Frank colored; it was unusual and extremely unpleasant to be rebuked in this way before the entire class. He had not realized that he had left his blank papers so carelessly but even at that, he knew that the rebuke was not deserved.
"The professor has just as good reason," he reflected angrily, "to scold Ford for being careless."
There was nothing to say about it, but it made Frank bitter, and all the more determined to make his paper so correct that the professor could not help giving it a perfect mark.
He pushed his loose papers together in a pile squarely in the middle of the desk and resumed his work.
No one heard what Ford asked the professor; it was some question concerning the paper, and when the professor answered it, it was in a tone of surprise.
"I should hardly think that the question was necessary," he said, "though of course I don't blame you for wanting to be careful about it."
Ford muttered that he wanted to be sure that the problem was correctly printed on the paper, and when the professor told him that it was, he bowed and returned to his desk.
Few of the students paid any attention to this matter, and those who did promptly concluded that Ford was so anxious to lead the class that he got nervous and had therefore asked some question that any child could have understood.
The incident was soon forgotten, and for an hour or two the students worked away at their papers in silence.
The only thing that troubled Frank was that he could have completed the entire paper within an hour if he had tried.
As it was, he had worked out every problem except the last on his loose sheets of paper, and transferred most of them to his regular examination paper by the end of two hours.
He was greatly relieved to notice that none of his best friends had left the room. A few students had gone out, probably because they were utterly unable to answer the questions.
For the sake of killing time, Frank had already written out the last problem on loose paper twice, and he was now at the bottom of his pile with one sheet of blank paper left.
He glanced at the clock; almost an hour to spare. He finished his regular paper up to the last problem, and then, drawing the one remaining blank sheet toward him, began again to work that out.
Again and again he had seen Prof. Babbitt looking sharply at him, and more than once the professor had walked by his desk in the course of his strolling around the room.
Twenty minutes passed, and Frank believed that it could be of no use to waste time longer, so he crumpled up the loose sheet on which he had been working in his left hand, and started to work out the problem on his regular examination paper.
Just then Prof. Babbitt turned up from around the corner of another desk, brought his hand down upon Frank's left hand, and held it there.
"Now, then, Merriwell," he exclaimed in a thundering voice, "I've got you. This will mean your expulsion from Yale, sir, and nothing short of it."
Frank 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 put up this job on me for the sake of squeezing me out of college, but I don't think Babbitt is mean enough for that. The paper probably got there by some confounded accident. I certainly cannot account for it on any other theory."
Just as the city clocks were striking noon, Frank entered the campus and proceeded to the dean's office. The dean gave him an inquiring glance as he entered.
"Prof. Babbitt told me to report here at this hour," said Frank, quietly.
"Ah!" returned the dean, "Prof. Babbitt is conducting an examination, I believe, which should be over at this time; doubtless he will be here in a moment. Sit down, Merriwell."
Frank took a chair in a corner of the room, and Waited, while the dean kept at work at his usual affairs.
Fully a quarter of an hour passed before Prof. Babbitt came in. When he did so, he had his arms full of examination papers, and he was accompanied by a man whose face was vaguely familiar to Frank, but whom he did not know by name.
It was a resident of New Haven whom he had seen on the street from time to time during his college career.
Babbitt gave Frank a scowling glance and remarked:
"Ah! I see that with your customary nerve you're here. We will settle this matter, therefore, without delay."
The dean laid down his pen and looked up in surprise.
"What is the matter, Prof. Babbitt?" he asked.
"I am compelled, dean," returned the professor, "to accuse Merriwell of cheating in an examination. I hardly need say that I should not make the charge unless I had ample proof to sustain it."
The dean looked over his glasses at Frank in a way that showed that he was not only shocked, but vastly surprised; then he gave an inquiring glance at the man who had come in with Prof. Babbitt.
"Excuse me, dean," said the professor, "this is Mr. James Harding. I thought that you were acquainted with him."
"I have not met Mr. Harding before," responded the dean, "although his face is familiar."
"I'm glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said Harding.
The dean rose and both shook hands. Then the dean hesitated a moment and said:
"Won't it be as well, Prof. Babbitt, to postpone the inquiry as to Merriwell until – "
"No, excuse me," interrupted the professor, "I've brought Mr. Harding here for a purpose. He can tell you something that has a bearing upon Merriwell's case."
"Oh, very well. Step this way, Merriwell."
The dean sat down, and Frank advanced to a place in front of his desk. Babbitt's mouth was open to talk, but the dean ignoring him, turned to Frank.
"This is a very grave charge to be laid against a student, Merriwell," he said, "and I can't tell you how it grieves me that you should be suspected.
"We have all had a high opinion of your honor. I will add frankly that I hope you can clear yourself."
"Thank you," responded Frank, huskily. "I'll try to, for I'm absolutely innocent, but I'm afraid there's nothing else that I can say in my defense."
"That can hardly be possible," responded the dean. "What are the circumstances, professor?"
"Why, the case is as plain as day!" exclaimed Babbitt, quickly. "This examination was set as a test for the class, a special test, I may say, and on the strength of it I expected to require certain students, like Merriwell and his particular friends, to go over a portion of last year's work.
"I knew from the examination of last spring just where they were weak, and I drew up this paper in such a way that the students themselves would be readily convinced of their weakness and so be the more willing to study."
The dean nodded to show that he understood.
"Now, then," continued the professor, "I had the papers printed by the college printer in the usual way, with just enough copies to go around.
"I counted the papers when they were delivered at my room by the printer, and found them to be one hundred and forty-six in all. I tied the papers up in a parcel and left them in my room until this morning, when I took the parcel to Osborn Hall. There I opened the bundle and when the papers were distributed, it proved that two were missing."
Prof. Babbitt paused, as if expecting the dean to make some comment. He did not do so, but looked straight ahead, and so the professor went on.
"I must say that I instantly had my suspicions of Merriwell, for during the past three days he has been frequently at the house where I have my room.
"I kept my eyes on him during the entire examination, and I could easily see that he was not conducting himself as usual. He used up a great deal of paper and was evidently nervous.
"At length I took a position back of his desk, where I could watch what he was doing without being observed. Presently I saw him work out the last problem on the examination paper, and work it out correctly, too.
"Then, as he crumpled up the paper on which he had been figuring, I caught a glimpse of the other side of it. I pounced upon his hand and discovered that he had been figuring upon the back of one of the missing question sheets."
The professor's voice had a triumphant ring when he came to the end of his little speech. There was evidently no doubt in his mind that what he had discovered would be sufficient proof to the dean of Frank's crookedness.
The dean pursed up his lips and looked absently up at the ceiling for a moment, and then turned to Frank.
"If I understand the professor correctly," he said, slowly, "you had two of the question papers on your desk instead of one?"
"Yes, sir," Frank responded.
"How did the second one get there, Merriwell?"
"I don't know, sir."
Prof. Babbitt snorted contemptuously.
Frank flushed and glanced at him angrily, but held his tongue.
"Didn't the professor make any inquiries when he discovered that two papers were missing?" asked the dean.
"Yes, I did – "
"Let Merriwell answer, please."
"He did," said Frank, "and I examined my desk, as I thought, thoroughly, to see if an extra paper had been placed there by mistake. I found none and went to work without any further thought on the matter. I worked out the problem on the back of the question paper without knowing what it was until the professor pounced on me."
"And is that all you can say about it?"
"Everything, sir."
The dean turned to Prof. Babbitt and said:
"I can't deny that the discovery of a paper under such circumstances is very suggestive, but I take it for granted that you have some explanation of your own to offer as to how Merriwell got possession of it?"
"Indeed I have, and that is just why I brought Mr. Harding here," replied Babbitt. "Tell the dean what you saw, Mr. Harding."
"I suppose," said Harding, "that it was simply some harmless prank of students at first, for we who live in New Haven are quite accustomed to such things, don't you know."
"I don't think I do," replied the dean, sharply, "for I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."
"Come right to the point, Mr. Harding!" added Babbitt.
"Well, sir, I live in the house next to the one occupied by Prof. Babbitt and some of the students.
"One day I was astonished, as I happened to be looking out of my window, to see a young man climb out of the big chimney at the top of Prof. Babbitt's house.
"He went around on the roof for a moment, looking for some way to get down, and at last caught the limb of a tree which bent under his weight until he could drop safely to the ground.
"Then he hurried away through an alley that led to another street. There was no doubt that he was trying to escape observation."
"Had you ever seen this student before?" asked the dean.
"Many times, though I never knew his name until now – "
"I was the student," interrupted Frank, quietly.
"The impudence of that confession," exclaimed Prof. Babbitt, hotly, "is enough to drive a man crazy! The great chimney in that house, dean, hasn't been used for many years, and the fireplaces have been boarded up, but an athlete like Merriwell could go up and down easily and you can see how he could effect an entrance by going into the fireplace of the room under mine, which is occupied by one of his friends, and so climbing up through the chimney to my room – "
"May I ask a question?" interposed Frank.
"Certainly," responded the dean.
"Mr. Harding," said Frank, "what day was it when you saw me climb out of the chimney on the roof?"
Harding was silent a moment, and then said:
"I hadn't given the matter any thought until a few moments ago, when Prof. Babbitt met me and remarked that he was in great trouble because a student had somehow entered his room and stolen a paper.
"I then told him what I had seen and he asked me to come here and tell the same thing to you. I think that this thing occurred on Tuesday."
"Are you quite sure?" asked Frank.
Mr. Harding took some envelopes from his pocket and looked them over.
"Yes," he said, "I had an important letter come a few minutes after that, and I see by the postmark here that it was delivered on Tuesday. I am certain that it was Tuesday."
"I only wish to say," said Frank, turning to the dean, "that it was on Tuesday that Prof. Babbitt took his question paper to the printer. The printed examination papers could not have been delivered before Wednesday at the earliest."