"Take back them cruel woids," demanded Axtell. "Flunker," he went on meditatively, "it hath a right knavish sound. Beshrew me, if I fling it not back in the teeth of any caitiff knight that dare put such shame upon me." A great light dawned upon them. "What!" cried Dick. "You old rascal. You don't mean to say that you've worked off your conditions?" "You speak sooth," was the reply, "albeit your wonder at the same pleasureth my pride but little. For less than that my sword hath ofttimes drunk the blood of churls." They fell upon him and pounded him till he was out of breath. "Glory hallelujah!" shouted Tom. "The best news I've heard since Hector was a pup," declared Dick. "Now we've got a fighting chance," exulted Bert. "By Jove, old scout, you don't know how the team has missed you." Axtell flushed with pleasure. "Maybe I won't be glad to get back with the gang again," he ejaculated. "Gee, for the last two weeks I've felt like a sneak. I can't forgive myself for getting in such a fix, just when we were in such good shape and going like a house afire. You bet that from now on my record will be as clean as a hound's tooth." "Bully!" said Bert. "I think you've done wonders though, to get rid of the conditions so soon. You must have worked like a horse." "I've worked all right," said Axtell grimly. "It was the least I could do, heaven knows. Some nights I haven't gone to bed at all. Even at that, I felt a little skittish when I went up for my exam. But I was desperate and went in largely on my nerve. When the Prof. looked over my papers I thought I heard him mutter to himself something that sounded like: 'All Gaul is divided into three parts and you've got two of them.' But that may simply have been my guilty conscience. At any rate I got away with it, and the old sport gave me a clean bill of health." "It's like getting money from home," affirmed Dick. "Maybe 'Bull' Hendricks won't be tickled to death. He'll kill the fatted calf if he can find one straying loose around the training quarters." "O, he'll fall on my neck all right--with a club," remarked Axtell drily. "When it comes to disguising his joy, 'Bull' is a dandy actor." "Don't you believe it," said Bert. "But how about your accomplice in crime?" "O, Hodge will be coming along soon," was the reassuring reply. "He's been working just as hard as I have or harder. But he's had two to make up, where I had only one. He's hired a tutor to coach him and is cramming away like mad. He told me this morning he thought he'd be ready to go into the torture chamber by the end of this week."