"Why, even my father remembers when, as a little shaver, he used to have white sugar spread on his bread for a treat." "Seems queer, doesn't it?" Van mused. "Yes. But it isn't so queer when you consider that all the sugar-cane now growing in America first had to be brought to the West Indies from Spain, the Canary Islands, or Madeira and then transplanted along the Mississippi delta. Dad says that originally sugar-cane came from Africa or India and that doubtless it was the Crusaders who introduced it into Europe." "Do you mean to tell me that people never knew about sugar until then?" inquired Van incredulously, halting in the middle of the road. "The Chinese were practically the only people who did, and they did not use it at all as we do; they just sweetened things with the thin sap." Van regarded his chum steadily for a moment. "Say," he demanded at last, "how did you come to know so much, Bobbie?" "What? Oh, about sugar? I don't know much. I just happen to remember a few scraps Father has told me from time to time. He's in the sugar business, you know." "Really? No, I didn't know. You never said anything about it. Cane-sugar?" "Yes." Bob watched Van curiously. "That's odd." "Why?" "Oh, because my father is in the sugar business too. Don't you recall my telling your father so? Yes, my dad makes beet sugar." "Then that's how my father happened to know your father!" exclaimed Bob quickly. "I suppose they're business friends. I've been wondering why Father kept watching you. Probably he sees in you some resemblance to your father. Do you look like him?" "I hardly know. Some people think I do. My mother says so," was Van's indifferent response. "But say, tell me more about sugar. You'd think with my father right in the business I'd know something about it; but I don't. Do they get sugar from anything beside beets, and sugar-cane, and maple sap?" "Oh, my, yes. There's sugar in ever so many other things: in grapes, and milk, and the date palm, and in maize; but it is from the beet and cane that the most sugar can be extracted." Van nodded. "You're quite a lecturer, Bobbie," he said. "Wait until I get back home and astonish my father with all this knowledge. I'll make his eyes stick out." Van broke into hearty laughter at the thought. Then, as he started to walk on he gave a shout of dismay. "Hold onto me, Bob," he cried. "I can't move. While I've been standing here listening to your words of wisdom I've been sinking deeper and deeper into your old yellow mud until now I can't stir. I can't--upon my word. My feet are in perfectly solid. You can laugh if you want to, but you've just got to pull me out, that's all. Help! Help! To the rescue. I shall disappear in another minute. David will never see his rubber boots again." "Of course you can get your feet out," was Bob's scornful retort.