"I wouldn't," answered Randy quickly.
"Nor I," came from Fred and Andy.
"I'd never dream of playing such a trick on anybody but a man like Professor Lemm," announced Jack. The others also agreed that it was not likely any such joke would have been played on anybody else in the Hall.
"Then, evidently, none of you likes Professor Lemm," said Colonel Colby slowly.
To this there was no reply, but the look on the faces of the various cadets showed the master of the Hall that he had struck the truth.
"Now I'm going to ask you boys another question," he went on, after a pause, and there was a faint smile on his face when he spoke. "Don't you think you ought to be punished for what you have done?"
For a moment there was another silence. Then Jack spoke up.
"In one way, yes, sir; but in another, no," he replied. "Professor Lemm treated us very unjustly in the classroom in making us stay in and making us do extra lessons, and we didn't know of any other way to get square with him."
"Looks to me as if we got our punishment before we played the joke," said Andy, and this reply made some of the cadets grin.
Colonel Colby looked out of the window, which faced the snow-covered campus. Although the boys did not know it, he hardly knew what to say or do. He realized that he could not pass over the occurrence without punishing the lads, and yet he could see their point of view—that Asa Lemm had been the first at fault in not treating them fairly during classes.