rry Dickson and a number of boys whom he had seen very
little of when it came time to go to bed at ten o'clock that night.

His suitcase had been brought up and one of a number of lockers was
assigned to him in which he could keep his clothes, there being a small
portable iron washstand in front of it at the head of his bed which was
about ten feet distant from the next on either side.

There was a row of beds running along two sides of the room with a space
of ten feet between the rows, so that there was plenty of room for every
one and yet the boys were near enough to converse with each other if
they chose before the lights were put out, this being done outside by
one of the professors.

Jack saw four or five boys gathered in a knot while he was undressing
and caught a few words of their conversation which was carried on in low
tones, paying no attention to it, however, and not seeming to have heard
it.

"We must give him a welcome to the Academy," said Harry.

"As soon as the lights go out, make a rush and be sure and get the water
jug before he gets up," put in Arthur.

"Oh, we know where everything is, all right," muttered Billy Manners, a
lively young fellow whom Jack had noticed at the supper table, who
seemed to be always making jokes at something or other. "We have done
this before, you know."

"It was just as well that I thought there might be something of this
sort and got ready for it," thought Jack, but as far as any of the boys
could see he was entirely unsuspicious of their pleasant intentions.

He undressed himself quietly, now and then saying something to one or
another of the boys who addressed him, and then, just before he got into
bed, quietly dropped something on the floor on each side of the bed
without being noticed.

He had taken whatever it was from his suitcase and had not been
observed, his motions being quick and with no appearance of stealth or a
suspicion of the other boys' designs.

All the boys were in bed a few minutes before the electric lights were
extinguished and talked among themselves on matters of little
importance, Jack saying little, however, but calculating how long it
would take the nearest boy to reach him and fixing the position of the
water jug well in his mind without turning to look at it.

The lights were extinguished from a switch-board in the doctor's room as
soon as the clock struck, so that it was not necessary to go up to the
dormitories at all.

Ther