Mrs. Rosscott was conscious of being suddenly and skillfully countercharged. She blushed with vexation, bit her lip in perturbation, and cast upon the trying individual opposite a look of most appealing interrogation. “You see,” said Clover pleasantly, “I was coming to town, so I came in handy for the purpose of telling you.” She gave him a glance that prayed him to be decent and go on with his errand. “Burnett is about recovered,” he said. She clasped her hands hard. “I wouldn’t be a man for anything!” she exclaimed with sudden fervor, “they are so awfully mean. Why _don’t_ you go on and tell me _what_ you’ve come about?” He raised his eyebrows. “May I?” he asked. She choked down some of her exasperation. “Yes, you may.” “Oh, thank you so much. I’ll begin at once then. Only premising that as I go to school with your little brother, and as he is rather under a cloud just at present, we clubbed together to bring you a letter about him and Jack. He was going to dictate it, but in the end Mitchell wrote it all. Here it is.” With that he put his hand into his pocket, drew out an envelope and handed it to her. “How awfully good of you,” she said gratefully. “Do excuse my reading it at once, won’t you? You see, I’ve been so anxious about—about my brother.” He nodded understandingly, and she hastily tore open the envelope and ran her eyes over the written sheets. MY DEAR MRS. ROSSCOTT:— Being the prize writer of the class, I am chosen to take down the ante mortem confessions of our shattered friends. It is in a sad hour for them that I do so, because I am naturally so truthful that I shall not force you to look for my meaning between the lines. On the contrary, I shall set the cold facts out as neatly as the pickets on the fence. And in evidence thereof, I open the ball by telling you frankly that they both look fierce. If they had looked less awful, and Burnett had had more lime in his bones, we might have escaped the Powers That Be by simply admitting a sprained ankle and carefully concealing everything else. But if one man cracks where you can’t finish the deal, even by the most unlimited outlay of mucilage and persistence, and another blazes his whole surface-area in a manner that seems to make the underbrush dubious to count on forever henceforth; why, you then have a logarithm the square of which is probably as far beyond your depth as I am beyond my own just at this point of this sentence. The long and short of my fresh start is, that your brother wants to write you, but he is so handicapped (forgive me, but you’re the only one who hasn’t had that joke sprung on them!) with bandages, that it’s cruel to expect much of him. It is true that he has his bosom friend to fall back upon, but if you could see that friend as we see him these days you wouldn’t be sure whether it was true or not.