"Well, if that isn't gratitude for you!" muttered Roger. "I go out and risk my neck for my dear beloved unit mates and they stand around arguing instead of buckling down to study."
"This is no joke, Roger," said Tom seriously. "Now for the last time, will you tell us how you got them?"
Roger thought a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said finally. "When I went down to the library to see if it was our turn for them yet, I found that we were still twenty-seventh in line."
"Twenty-seventh?" gasped Astro.
"That's right, spaceboy!" snorted Roger. "So I tried to con that little space doll of a librarian into moving our names up on the list, but just then an Earthworm cadet came in with an order from Tony Richards of the Capella unit, an order for the very spools we needed."
"You mean, you took them from an Earthworm?" queried Tom.
"Well, I didn't take them exactly," replied Roger. "I waited for him out on the quadrangle and I told him he was wanted in the cadet dispatcher's office right away and that I would take the spools on up to Tony."
"And you brought them here!" howled Astro.
"Yup." Roger grinned. "Do you think that squirt will know who I am? Not in a million years. And by the time Tony and the others do find out who has them, we'll be finished. Get it?"
"I get it, all right, you crummy little chiseler," growled Astro. "Tom, we gotta give these back to Tony."