There are, of course, three ways of contemplating a letter written by a young lady, according to whether the recipient be a friend, is in love, or being in love, loves without hope. Skippy used all three methods. That night he placed four pairs of trousers to press under his mattress, discarded the dicky (a labor saving device formed by the junction of two cuffs and a collar which snapped into place and fulfilled the requirements of table etiquette), and painted the ends of his fingers with iodine to break himself of the habit of living on his nails. On the following Saturday, Mr. Sidell being still, as it were, under absent treatment, Mr. Turkey Reiter making the fourth, Skippy experienced the terrifying joy of sitting in the back seat next to Miss Mimi Lafontaine. "You bad boy, why didn't you answer my letter?" said that young lady, after a careful inspection of the embarrassed Skippy had resulted in much increased satisfaction. "I wrote you three times," he said, staring at his shoes. "Three--then they must have gone to the school." "I tore them up," he said, under his voice. Between a feminine nineteen and a masculine fifteen, much is permissible. Miss Mimi, under protection of the rug, slid her little hand into his painfully-scrubbed one. "Poor fellow!" she said softly. "Gee!" It was not exactly the last word in romance, but it came from the heart, a sort of final gasp as Skippy felt the waters closing above him. With her hand in his, something rose in his throat and he had to fight back the dimming of his eyes. By the time they rolled into Princeton there was no longer need of explanation. He felt that she knew beyond the shadow of a mistake, just what he felt for her, he, Skippy, who had never loved before. Of course she was not pledged. That he comprehended. She was yet to be won. The years between them were nothing. Josephine Beauharnais was older than Napoleon. By the time they returned to the school, he had opened his heart impulsively and spread before the astonished ideal of his affections the treasures of his inventive imagination. Miss Lafontaine had been sympathetic. She had understood at once. She had rather lightly passed over the Bedelle Improved Bathtub. The subject, of course, was a delicate one; but the idea of mosquito-proof stockings had captured her imagination. With her faith acquired he could wait for years the coming opportunity. "Why, Jack, I never heard of such an imagination," she said, converting an explosive laugh into a sneeze in the nick of time. "Oh, that's just a beginning," he said confidently. "I've got bigger things than that stored away." "Why, you'll be richer than Rockefeller!" "That's only a small part of it," he said carelessly. What of course he had wished her to know, and he flattered himself that he had done it with great delicacy, was that he was a prize worth waiting for.