"Oh, I know what you mean!" burst out Sid. "It looks as if I wasn't telling the truth. But I am--you'll believe me--some day."

"Forget it," advised Phil. "Let's talk about baseball. Have you seen the loving cup trophy?"

"It's a beaut!" declared Tom. "I saw it in the doctor's study. We're going to win it, too!"

"Hope so," murmured Phil. "If we have a few more games like to-day, we may. But speaking of games----"

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. Sid started and leaped up from the sofa.

"I'll go," he exclaimed. "If it's a message----"

He did not finish, but Tom and Phil looked significantly at each other.

Clearly Sid expected another mysterious summons. But, as he opened the portal there stood the Jersey twins.

"h.e.l.lo, fellows," began Joe, "do you want to see some sport?"

"Fine sport," added Jerry, who sometimes echoed his brother, a trick that was interchangeable with the twins.

"We're always ready for sport," replied Tom. "What is it: baiting a professor, or hazing some freshies?"

"Professor," replied Joe.

"Pitchfork," echoed Jerry, that name, as I have explained, being applied to Professor Emerson Tines.

"What's up now?" asked Phil.

"Oh, he's been particularly obnoxious of late," went on Joe. "Some of us had a little smoker the other night, strictly sub-rosa, you understand, but he smelled us out, and now some of us are doing time for it. To-day Bricktop Molloy evolved a little scheme, and we thought we'd let you fellows in on it. Want to come, Sid?" for Sid had gone back to the sofa.

"No, I guess not," he answered listlessly.

"What's the matter--sick?" inquired Joe, in a whisper of Tom and Phil.

They shook their heads, and motioned to the twins not to make further inquiries.

"What's the game?" asked Tom. "We'll come."

"We're going to get back at Pitchfork," went on Jerry. "Come along and you'll see. I'll just explain, though, that he has quietly been 'tipped off' to the effect that another smoker is in progress, and if he does as we expect him to, he'll try to raid the room."

"And if he does?"

"Well, he won't find what he expects to. Come on, and keep quiet. What's the matter with Sid, anyhow?" for by this time the four were out in the corridor, leaving the moody one in the room.

"Hanged if we know," replied Phil, "except that there's a girl mixed up in it." He refrained from saying anything about the accusation, thinking that would be noised about soon enough.

"Oh, if it's only a girl he'll soon be over it," declared Joe with a professional air.

"Of course," echoed his brother. "Come on."

Phil and Tom soon found themselves in the midst of a number of choice spirits, who moved silently about the lower end of the corridor, near a room that was sometimes used for student meetings, and where, more than once, it was whispered, smokers had been held, in violation of the rules. The reason for the selection of this apartment was that it had an open fireplace, which carried off the fumes of the tobacco.

"Did he get the tip?" asked Jerry, as he and his brother, together with Phil and Tom, came up.

"He sure did," answered Bricktop. "Reports from the front are that he is on the warpath."

"Is everything working all right?" asked Joe.

"Fine. Can't you smell it?"

Tom and Phil sniffed the air. There was an unmistakable odor of tobacco.

"But if there's a smoker going on in there, why was Pitchfork tipped off?" inquired Tom.

"Wait an' ye'll see, me lad," advised Bricktop in his rich brogue. "I think he's coming now. Pump her up, Kindlings!"

Then, for the first time Tom and his chum noticed that Dan Woodhouse had a small air pump, which he was vigorously working, as he stood in a dark corner.

Footsteps sounded down the corridor. There were hasty cautions from the ringleaders, and the lads hid themselves in the dim shadows of the big hall. The footsteps came nearer, and then they seemed to cease. But the reason was soon apparent, for Professor Emerson Tines was now tip-toeing his way toward the door of the suspected room. By the dim light of a half-turned down gas jet he could be seen sneaking up. The only sound from the students was the faint sound of the air pump. Tom and Phil could not imagine what it was for.

Professor Tines reached the portal. Then he gave a sudden knock, and called:

"I demand to be admitted at once, young gentlemen! I know the nefarious practice that is going on in there, and it must stop at once! Open the door or I shall summon the janitor and have it forced! Open at once!"

The professor tried the k.n.o.b. To his surprise it at once opened the door, and he almost stumbled into the apartment. He uttered an exclamation of delight, probably in the belief that he had caught the students red-handed, but the next moment he gave a gasp of dismay.

For, as Tom, Phil, and all the others could see from their vantage points in the shadowy recesses, the room was empty. It was lighted, however, and in plain view on a table in the middle of the floor was a large flask. In the top of this there was a receptacle which contained a pile of burning tobacco, and it was glowing as though some giant was puffing on the improvised pipe. From a gla.s.s tube extending from the flask there poured out volumes of the pungent odor, and, as the puffs came, Tom and Phil could hear the air pump being worked. It was a "studentless smoker," the air pump, attached to a rubber hose which exhausted the air from the flask, producing exactly the effect of some one puffing a pipe. The room was blue with the haze of tobacco, and as the astonished professor stood and gazed at the strange sight more smoke arose from the flask. Then, from somewhere in the dark recesses of the corridor came a voice.

"Stung!" it e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and there was a hurried movement as the students fled in the darkness.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ENVELOPE

Plunging on through the darkened corridors Tom and Phil reached their room. They found Sid still on the sofa.

"Say, that was great!" cried Tom, venturing to laugh, now that there was no danger of being caught. "You should have been along, Sid. Pitchfork got his to-night, all right. I'll never forget the blank look on his face."

"I either," agreed Phil. "That was a smoker as was a smoker. I hope none of us are caught. The twins and Bricktop outdid themselves this trip."

Sid began to show some signs of interest, and the trick was told of in detail to him. Of course a faculty inquiry followed, but the hose and air pump had been taken from the school laboratory, and there were no clues to the perpetrators. Professor Tines was furious, and demanded that the guilty ones be dismissed.

"Willingly, my dear professor," agreed the venerable Dr. Churchill, "if I can only find them," and there was a twinkle in his deep-set eyes, which he took care that Mr. Tines did not see.

Baseball practice went on for several days. One afternoon, as the lads were dispersing, Ed Kerr was seen coming over the diamond, holding in his hand a letter.

"We can't play Fairview Sat.u.r.day," he announced.