bundle out from under my arm. That's celery and crackers. Here's a pail
of hot coffee with cream and sugar all mixed. Lookout, Pat! That's
jelly-roll and chocolate éclairs! Don't mash it, you chump! Why didn't
you come with me?"

It was pleasant to lie there in that warm, comfortable room with the
familiar sights all around, the pennants, the pictures, the wild
arrangements of photographs and trophies, and hear the fellows talking
of homely things; to be fed with food that made him begin to feel like
himself again; to have their kindly fellowship all about him like a
protection.

They were grand fellows, each one of them; full of faults, too, but true
at heart. Life-friends he knew, for there was a cord binding their four
hearts together with a little tenderer tie than bound them to any of
the other fellows. They had been together all the four years, and if all
went well, and Bill Ward didn't flunk anything more, they would all four
go out into the world as men together at the end of that year.

He lay looking at them quietly as they talked, telling little foolish
jokes, laughing immoderately, asking one another anxiously about a tough
question in the exam. that morning, and what the prospects were for good
marks for them all. It was all so familiar and beloved! So different
from those last three hours amid suffering and sorrow! It was all so
natural and happy, as if there were no sorrow in the world. As if this
life would never end! But he hadn't yet got over that feeling of the
Presence in the room with them, standing somewhere behind Pat and
Tennelly. He liked to feel the consciousness of it in the back of his
mind. What would the fellows say if he should try to tell them about it?
They would think he was crazy. He had a feeling that he would like to be