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."