Seems Mother and Sister Janice are on their way to the steamer, billed
to spend the winter abroad. Also it develops that stern Father,
standin' grim and bored in the background, has ruled that Son mustn't
quit business for any farewell lallygaggin' at the pier. Hence the
fam'ly call. As the touchin' scene all takes place in the reception
room, just across the brass rail from my desk, I'm almost one of the
party.

"Oh, my darling boy!" wails Ma, pushin' back her veils and wrappin' him
in the fond clinch.

"Aw, Mother!" protests Mortimer.

"But we are to be so far apart," she goes on, "and with your father in
California you are to be all alone! And I just know you'll be forlorn
and lonesome in that dreadful boarding house! Oh, it is perfectly
awful!"

"Oh, quit it, Mother. I'll be all right," says Mortimer.

"But the work here," comes back Mother. "Does it come so hard? How
are you to stand it? Oh, if you had only kept on at college, then all
this wouldn't have been necessary."

"Well, I didn't, that's all," says Mortimer; "so what's the use?"

"I shall worry about you all the time," insists Mother. "And you are
so careless about writing! How am I to know that you are not ill, or
in trouble? Now promise me, if you should break down under the strain,