Leaning across the table Van affectionately rumpled up Bob's tidy locks until every individual hair stood on end. "If it weren't for me you'd be dropped back into the next class--that's what would happen to you; and you deserve it, too." Van was silent. "I know it. I haven't put in an hour of solid work for a month, Bob I ought to be ashamed, and I am." He paused. "But there's no use jumping all over myself if I haven't," he resumed, shifting to a more sprightly tone. "I've said I was going to take a spurt soon and I mean it. I'll begin next week." "Why not start to-day?" There was a rap at the door. "Why not?" echoed Van, moving toward the door with evident relief. "Don't you see I can't? Somebody's always breaking in on my work. Here's somebody this very minute." He flung open the door. "Mail. A parcels-post package for you, Bob. I'll bet it's eats. Your mother's a corker at sending you things; I wish my mother sent me something now and then." "Well, it's a little different with you. Your family live so far out west they can't very well mail grub to you; but Mater is right here in New York, and of course as she's near by she'd be no sort of a mother if she didn't send me something beside this prison fare. Come on and see what it is this time." Bob loosened the string from the big box and began unwinding the wrappings. "Plum-cake!" he cried. "A dandy great loaf! And here's olives, and preserved ginger, and sweet chocolate. She's put in salted almonds, too; and look--here's a tin box of Hannah's molasses cookies, the kind I used to like when I was a kid. Isn't my mother a peach?" "She sure is; and she must think a lot of you," said Van slowly. "I wish my mother'd ever--" "Maybe if you pitched in a little harder here she'd feel--" "Oh, cut out the preaching, Bobbie," was the impatient retort. "I've had enough for one day."