"Needles?" reiterated Phil. "Yes, needles; ten million of them, by the way I feel!" Phil placed the mudturtle in the wash basin, where it vainly tried to climb up the slippery porcelain sides. Then he went over to Tom's bed. "There are no needles here," he said. "No? What are they, then?" demanded Tom, continuing to rub himself. "Chestnut burrs," replied his chum, after a more careful inspection. "Some one has taken the stickers off a lot of chestnut burrs and scattered them in your bed. No wonder they went through your pajamas. I'd rather have the mudturtle than them." "Or a snake," added Sid. "I wonder who did it?" Phil pulled back the covers from Tom's bed. At the foot, between the sheets, was a piece of paper. The quarter-back made a grab for it and read: "Compliments of the freshmen. Maybe you won't be so smart next time." "The freshmen!" cried Tom. "We'll make them smart for this!" "They've made you smart already," commented Sid, as he put his snake in a pasteboard box, and carefully closed it with a weight on top. "I guess they got ahead of us this time." "This is Gerhart's writing," went on Phil, looking closely at the note. "He originated the scheme. Let's see if any other fellows have suffered." They partly dressed, and stole silently to the rooms of some of their classmates. No one else had felt the vengeance of the freshmen, and our friends concluded that the performance had been arranged for their special benefit, on account of the friction they had had with Gerhart. "How am I going to sleep in that bed to-night?" asked Tom ruefully, when they had returned to their room. "It's like being in a beehive." "I'll show you," said Phil, and he carefully took off the sheets, folding them up so that the chestnut stickers would not be scattered. "You can do without sheets to-night, I guess." "I guess I'll have to," went on Tom. "But I'm going to get another pair of pajamas. Those feel too much like a new flannel shirt," and he went to his trunk, which he began ransacking. "What can we do to get square?" asked Sid, as he again prepared to get into bed. "We've got to teach Gerhart a lesson." "That's what," agreed Tom. "We'll discuss it in the morning." But it was not so easy as they had supposed to think up a joke to play on the inventive freshman, that would be commensurate with the trick he had perpetrated on them. Besides, Gerhart kept pretty well with his own crowd of classmates, and, as there was safety in numbers, and as our three friends did not want a general class fight, they were, to a certain extent, handicapped. By Gerhart's grins they knew that he was aware of their discomfiture of the night previous. Tom was sorely tempted to come to fistic conclusions with the freshman, but Sid and Phil dissuaded him, promising to unite with him on some scheme of vengeance. The mudturtle and snake were retained by Sid, who had a small collection of live things.