READY FOR THE TEST.
Page got up looking very sheepish.
He expected that Frank would begin to turn the laugh on him. Nothing of
that kind happened, for the first moment Ford and Frank were speaking
together.
They had not met since the close of the last term, and they shook hands
in a friendly way, and made polite inquiries about each other's
vacations.
"What have you got here?" asked Frank, then, stepping toward the
fireplace with a queer look at Page.
The latter had not the nerve to answer.
"I suppose it used to be a fireplace," said Ford. "It looked when I came
into the room just as if there was no opening into the chimney at all,
but this door fits very closely."
"Were you trying to use the chimney as a telescope when I came in?"
asked Frank. "I saw you were both on your knees, looking up."
"No," replied Ford, "Page had something in there, he won't say what it
was, some kind of a pet, I believe, and it has flown out."
"No wonder," remarked Frank, dryly; "it would be a pretty poor kind of a
pet that wouldn't fly out of a place like that."
"If it was an unusual kind of a bird," suggested Ford, "why don't you
give notice of it to the police? It sometimes happens that they recover
missing pets."
"Oh, I guess I won't say anything about it," responded Page, blushing
furiously.
Frank could not control his laughter, so he threw himself into a window
seat, and looked out, having his back to the other two.
"What are you laughing at, anyway?" asked Ford.
"Oh, at my thoughts!" chuckled Frank. "I think Page ought to offer a
thousand dollars or so reward for his missing pet."
"You hold your tongue, Merriwell," said Page, "and some time or other
I'll make it right with you."
"Are you two fellows putting up some kind of a job on me?" exclaimed
Ford, suspiciously.
"Oh, no, on my honor!" exclaimed Frank, quickly. "I was just thinking of
a little joke that you don't know anything about."
"Aren't you going to spring the joke?"
"No, I'm going to keep it to myself."
Page looked immensely relieved, while Ford, after a doubtful glance at
both of them, turned his attention again to the chimney. He pushed the
secret door back into place and then opened it again.
"Mighty funny idea, isn't it?" he said, half to himself. "Certainly,
nobody would ever believe that that fireplace could be opened without a
pickax."
"I supposed it was solid," responded Page, "and got at the secret
entirely by accident."
"Opens easy, doesn't it?"
Ford kept opening and shutting the door.
"If this was in the olden times," he said, "when men had to hide from
enemies, what a racket it would be to shut one's self in here and then
climb out through the chimney."
Frank turned his back again to conceal his chuckle, while Page answered
that he thought it would be a good scheme. Then he added:
"I think I'll take the door down and make a fireplace of it."
"And not get your bird back?"
"No. Hang the bird!"
"Well, of course, that's for you to say. As for myself, I'm going to get
over to my room and look up mathematics for a while."
"I shouldn't think you'd need to," said Frank.
"Oh, a man grows rusty after three months away from the books, you
know," answered Ford, "and an examination always makes me nervous,
anyway. So long."
With this he left the room.
"Say, Merriwell," said Page, the moment the door was closed, "I don't
know whether to feel obliged to you, or be as mad as a hornet."
"I don't see any reason for either feeling."
"Well, I am obliged to you for not turning the laugh on me when you had
the chance to, and I ought to be mad for your getting out in the way you
did."
"What should you have shut me in there for," asked Frank, "if you did
not expect me to use my wits?"
"I just did it on impulse," Page answered, "and had no intention,
anyway, of keeping you there more than a few minutes."
"It's all right, Page, I didn't mind it a little bit. I went straight
out."
"I see you did."
"Now, see here, Page," said Frank, seriously, "I want to ask a favor of
you."
"Granted."
"Keep that door closed during the next few days."
"What, the door to the fireplace?"
"H'm! h'm!"
"Why, yes, I'll do that, but why? I shouldn't have it open more than a
minute or two at a time to show the fellows."
"Don't do that."
"Not show it to the fellows?"
"Not to anybody."
"I said I'd grant your favor and so I will, but what in the world is on
your mind?"
"I'll tell you," said Frank, with a little pause, "after the
examination."
"Babbitt's examination?"
"Yes."
"All right I suppose you've got some first-class trick you want to tell,
and you haven't got time to get it in shape until the examination is
over, is that it?"
"That's asking too much, Page. I'll tell you all about it later;
meantime, it is a fact that men like you and me have got to put in some
pretty hard licks if we want to pass that examination."
"Oh, thunder and Mars!" groaned Page, "I've made up my mind not to think
of it. It's impossible for me to cram up on a whole year's work in three
days."
"It might not be necessary to."
"How else can a fellow stand a chance of passing?"
"Well, suppose we should study just one part of the subject, and let the
rest of it go?"
"And then there might not be a single question on that subject, Frank."
"Yes, and again they might all be on that subject."
"It isn't likely."
"But it might be so, Page."
"Do you mean to say, Frank, that you'd recommend a fellow to take a kind
of gambling chance like that on an examination paper?"
"Well, not as a general thing, but seriously I do think it would be a
good scheme this time. You see, Babbitt is springing this examination
unexpectedly, and everybody knows that he's got queer ideas. Now I think
it would be quite like him to center the whole examination on one
topic."
"Why should he do that?"
"Well," answered Frank, slowly, "with the idea, perhaps, of catching the
fellows by surprise."
"He don't need to take all that pains for me," said Page, dismally; "he
could floor me if his examination Was made on the simplest things. If I
was like Ford, now----"
"Oh, Ford doesn't need to worry, of course. He led the class in
mathematics last year, didn't he?"
"Yes, and the year before, too. The idea of his being worried about the
examination is all nonsense."
"I know it is," said Frank, "except that he's got his ambition up to
keep at the lead; that's a natural ambition and decent, and I suppose
he'll do a lot of grinding to get ready for the exam."
"I'd grind, too, if I thought there'd be any use in it."
"I believe there will, Page, and if you don't mind following my lead,
I'll tell you what subject to grind on."
"Do you mean to say that you're going to cram up on just one part of
it?"
"Exactly, and what's more, if you'll agree to it, I'll come over here
with my books and we'll grind together. We'll get Browning, Rattleton
and Diamond, and one or two others in our crowd, and do the job
together."
"It's a bully idea!" exclaimed Page, "if it would only work. Gee! but
wouldn't it be just great if we should happen to hit on the topic that
old Babbitt has chosen and every one of us write a perfect paper?"
"I can't think of anything that would suit me better," Frank answered.
"Then let's try for it. It's just a chance, but I'm with you,
Merriwell."
"All right, then, and you'll remember you're to say nothing about that
fireplace, and you're not to open it until after the examination!"
"I'll remember, but you won't forget to tell me what it all means?"
"I'll let you into the whole business after Babbitt has examined the
papers."
It was not a very difficult matter for Frank to persuade his closest
friends to join him in preparing for the examination by studying hard on
one particular topic.
They were so in the habit of following his lead that although they all
regarded the effort in the same way that Page did, that is, a gamble,
they were willing to take the chances if Merriwell was.
Frank was almost perfectly certain that it was not a gambling chance,
because he remembered well enough how he had been faulty in that topic
at the spring examination, and if Babbitt was going to try to trip him,
that was the subject surely that he would select for his purpose.
Three days was none too long for the boys to refresh their memories on
the subject and prepare themselves well on this one topic.
They started in in the middle of the afternoon and worked together under
Frank's direction until dinner time.
He proved to be as hard a task master as Babbitt himself could have
been. The boys were not exactly surprised at that, for it was natural
for Frank to do with all his might whatever he undertook, but they joked
him a good deal while at dinner about turning professor.
"That's all right," Frank answered, "you can have your joke. If we come
out on this as I expect to, you'll be glad enough that you adopted my
plan."
"I must say I rather enjoy it," said Diamond, frankly. "Studying by
one's self is dull work, but when there are half a dozen or so grinding
away, somehow the time passes more quickly."
In the same way they worked until late that night, and began again early
the next morning.
Diamond offered the use of his room as a meeting place, and Puss Parker,
who had been let into the scheme, suggested that they come to his room,
too. Frank said no.
"We began in Page's room," was the way he put it, "and we might as well
work it out there."
"His room is so far out of the way!" grumbled Browning.
"A little walk won't hurt you any," responded Frank. "I'd much rather
keep at it there, for I'm used to the room."
So it was agreed that the grinding should continue at Page's, and it did
until the day of the examination.
They had other duties to perform, of course, during these days, but the
regular work of the college had not entirely begun, so that most of
their time could be put in to preparing for their examination.
They allowed none of the other students to interrupt them, and for that
matter, most members of the junior class were grinding in much the same
fashion.
They had only one caller during the entire period. This was Ford, but he
did not find them at work. They were just returning to the room from
dinner on the evening before the examination, when they met Ford leaving
the house.
"Ah, Page, I was just up to see you."
"Sorry I wasn't in," Page responded. "What was it, something special?"
"Oh, no," answered Ford, a little doubtfully, with a glance at the
others in the party; "let it go until some other time."
"If it isn't important, then," said Page, "I wish you would, for we
fellows are----"
"Sporting your oak, are you?"
"That's it exactly. We're trying to get up on mathematics and so we
don't admit any callers."
"All right, then," said Ford, "I'm doing much the same at my own room.
Good luck to you."
Frank did not keep the boys at work late that evening. They had pretty
well covered all the ground that he had chosen, and he believed that
they would be better able for the test the next morning, so at ten
o'clock he ordered them to their rooms, and they obeyed as readily as if
they were a crew training under their captain for a race.
At nine o'clock the next morning all the junior class assembled in one
of the big rooms of Osborn Hall. Prof. Babbitt was there ahead of them
with a number of assistants to look out for keeping the students in
order and to prevent any possible attempt at cheating.
The students found their places by means of slips of paper on the top of
each desk. Merriwell was a little amused to notice that he was placed
far from the friends with whom he usually associated.
"I wonder if Babbitt thinks I would cheat?" he thought.
There was a bundle neatly done up in brown paper on the professor's desk
at the head of the room. He stood near it until all the students were in
their places, each with a pad of blank paper before him, and a number of
sharpened pencils.
Then the professor broke the string with which the bundle was tied, and
calling up his assistants, handed them several papers each to
distribute.
They were the papers from the printer containing the fatal questions.