"Hi! Get out of there! Help! Murder! Take that beast away! Oh, my! he'll bite me sure! Ouch! he's bit me already!" And then the sneak of the school began to dance around wildly, in the meantime clutching savagely in the region of the knee where the mouse had found lodgement. Caught, the little animal had nipped Codfish in the finger. "Gee, this is the richest yet!" chuckled Walt Baxter. "Better than a moving picture," was Gif's comment. "He'll wake the whole school if he makes much more noise," remarked Jack. "Be prepared to skip out when the time comes." "I'll have somebody arrested for this," howled Codfish, as he still struggled with the mouse that was up his leg. "This is beastly! Oh, dear! what in the world shall I do?" He gave a savage tug at his pajamas, and the next instant there was a tearing sound and the cloth parted at the knee. Out leaped the mouse, to disappear quickly under the bed. Panting from his excitement, and muttering to himself, the sneak of the school, making sure that the shoes were now both empty, slipped his feet into them and then hurried toward the clothing closet located in a corner. He intended to get a baseball bat with which to either kill the mice or chase them out into the hallway. "Now watch," whispered Randy. "Here is where he gets another surprise." Stowell flung open the door of the closet in a hurry. As he did this he found himself confronted by the figure of a Colby Hall cadet. The intruder had a handkerchief tied over his face. "Hi! what are you doing here?" cried Stowell in sudden surprise. "You're the fellow who's playing the trick on me, eh? I'll fix you, you see if I don't!" And then struck by a sudden idea, Stowell slammed shut the door of the closet and locked it. "Now I've got you, and you'll suffer for this nonsense--you see if you don't!" he shouted. "Gee! this is the best yet!" burst out Andy in a low voice. "I didn't think he'd lock that dummy in." "We only put it there to scare him," explained Randy. "It's one of his old suits stuffed out. We thought it might fall out on him when he opened the door. But I guess it's better the way it is," he chuckled. "Where did you get those mice?" Gif questioned. "Oh, that was easy," answered Andy. "I met Pud Hicks, the janitor's assistant, this noon and he was telling me of a whole lot of mice he had caught down in the barn during the past week. He had the bunch in a box, and he said he was going to take them down to the river and drown them. I knew where the box was, and getting them was easy." By this time Codfish had slipped into his trousers, and now he put on his coat. "He's going downstairs to tell Captain Dale or one of the professors!" exclaimed Jack in a low voice. "We had better get out of here." The young captain's advice was followed, and all lost no time in leaving the fire escape and entering the school building. They were just in time to see the door to Stowell's room flung open and the sneak hurry downstairs.