“What does it all mean, Roy?”asked Garrett.
“I would rather not say,” was the reply.
“You had better, Roy,” said Bracebridge, in confidential tones.
Still blushing, Roy said:
“I say, you fellows, you don't mean to say there is anything crooked in this, do you?”
“No,” replied Andrew Garrett, “but an enemy of yours could make mighty good capital out of it all the same. Tell us what it means, Roy.”
“If you must know, then, it's merely this,” answered Roy, a little angrily, not exactly with his friends, but more at the exigencies of the situation. "There is a poor—quite poor—student in a seminary who is and has been a great friend of mine, in fact pretty much of a hero, as you would say if you knew his story. He had the greatest longing to get home last Christmas to see his widowed mother after years of absence. He could not afford it, and, like a real friend, asked me to assist him. Unfortunately my funds were very low—too low to help him. I expected that my mother would send me her usual Christmas present. I found out that she was willing
to do so, and I wrote to her to send most of it to my friend instead. There's your great mystery! I was short of funds because my father cut down my allowance this year.”
“So that's the reason you were so close this year?" asked Andrew.
“What?”