"Why, while we were just finishing breakfast who should stop at the house but Mr. Dickerson himself. He said an important letter had arrived for father, and as he was on his way back home to have his breakfast according to his usual habit between mails, he though he'd fetch it along with him; for father and he are very good friends, you must know, and Jack, when I saw that it was from London, you--well, you could have knocked me over with a feather I was so excited. Father read it, and I heard him tell mother that _two_ of his letters did get across after all. So you see, Jack, he took a hint from that article we left for him to see, and used the follow-up style of correspondence. I've figured it all out, and know that a steamer carrying a third letter couldn't have had time to get there. Besides, I heard father say it was the first, and also the second letter that landed, for his correspondent told him he had just received a copy of the original, and hastened to reply to both." Jack seized the other's willing hand, and the two indulged in a mutual squeezing affair, in which the honors were about even. Big Bob certainly looked happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him before. Well, he had good reason for feeling light-hearted, since in a flash he had been enabled to throw overboard the terrible weight that had for days and weeks been lying upon his soul, and making life unhappy for the poor fellow. "But, Jack," Bob went on to say, earnestly, "right now I want you to understand that I mean to profit by this thing." "Yes, I remember you vowed you would, Bob," remarked the pleased captain of the Chester eleven, once more easy in his mind, and no longer seeing that horrible gaping weak spot in the line-up. "This is going to be a lesson to me," continued Bob, soberly. "I've turned over a new leaf for keeps. Just let me catch myself acting careless again, whether in small things or in weighty ones, that's all. If I do I'm resolved to punish myself severely. That fault has _got_ to be conquered, once and for all." "Fine for you, Bob," Jack told him. "And so in the end the terrible trouble that threatened to break you all up, and keep you from enjoying the sports you love so well, has turned out to be only the best thing that could ever have happened to a fellow with a bad fault. That's the way things often go, Bob. Every fellow can look back and see a number of happenings that at the time he considered to be almost calamities; but long after they are past he discovers that they only forced him to change his calculations, much to his profit in many ways; so that they turned out to be mere stepping-stones on the road to success."