Sunk in a cushioned armchair, his slippered feet on the desk, a bottle of cooling ginger pop in one hand and a cream puff in the other, he placed before his imagination the problem:

"Why the mosquito?"

The more he pondered the more he became impressed with the fact that here indubitably was one of the errors of the Almighty. Snakes destroyed rats and mice at least, but what earthly purpose was served by mosquitoes?

He knew, as all smatterings of outer information reached him via the weekly lecture course, that besides being a stinging annoyance to the human race, the mosquito was a breeder of plagues and had to be fought in southern climes. Having wrathfully considered his subject and come to the conclusion that no mitigating circumstances could exist, he next put to himself this problem:

"If the mosquito cannot be exterminated, can it be neutralized? If so, how?"

When Snorky Green, to whom Miss Dabtree was more aunt than woman, came bursting in an hour later, with the rebellious consciousness of having thoroughly earned the five-dollar bill which lay in the safest of pockets, he stopped short at the sight of his roommate in that reclining concentration which Sherlock Holmes has popularized, the briar pipe being replaced by a large pencil, on which Skippy was chewing in heavy meditation.

"I say, Skippy, the old girl certainly came up handsome!" said Snorky gleefully, searching for the bill.

"Sh—sh!" said Skippy without turning.

"What the deuce?"

"I want to think."

"Danged if he isn't inventing something else!" said Snorky, who went on tiptoe to a position where he could study the frowning outward signs of the mental disturbances which were undoubtedly working inwardly. At the end of a silent hour, Skippy condescended to relax.

"Well!" said Snorky excitedly.

Skippy rose with dignity and went to the window, gazing out a moment into the darkling night where unknown myriads of mosquitoes lurked all unconscious of the doom impending over them.

"I say, Skippy, what's the big idea?"

"It's big—bigger than anything you ever imagined," said Skippy impressively.

"Aren't you going to tell a fellow!"

"Perhaps."

Now Snorky was not without a certain knowledge of human nature, particularly Skippy-nature, so without further interest he proceeded to disrobe, flipping the five-dollar bill on the table with a rakish gesture and saying carelessly:

"The old gal has a heart, anyhow. However, ta-ta for the night."

Five minutes later Skippy spoke from the depths of his bed.

"Snorky, I'll tell you this much."

There was a convulsion among the opposite sheets and Snorky sat up.

"Go on, I'm listening!"

"It's bigger than bathtubs."

"You don't say so!"

"Snorky, it's—"

"It's what?"

"It's mosquitoes!"

Accustomed as Snorky had become to the young inventor's cryptic methods, his imagination refused to follow.

"You don't see?"

"How the deuce should I see?"

"Snorky, I'm going to put the mosquito out of business!"

"How in tarnation!"

"When I get through with him," said Skippy loftily, "when my plans are perfected—he'll starve to death!"

"Oh, say! Skippy, is that all you're going to tell me?"

"That is all for to-night," said Skippy, who, seizing a slipper, flung it across the room at the evening's candle after the methods introduced by the lamented Hickey Hicks, and plunged the room into darkness.



CHAPTER XIV

THE PLOT AGAINST THE MOSQUITO

IF close association had brought to Snorky a canny knowledge of his roommate's need of unbosoming himself of a great idea, it had also acquainted Skippy with the profit to be derived from Snorky's overwhelming curiosity, particularly when there were any symptoms of ready cash.

The next afternoon, therefore, without being unduly surprised, he accepted an invitation to accompany Mr. Snorky Green to the home of the Conovers up the road, where the record for pancakes at one continuous sitting stood at forty-nine to the honor (without challengers) of the Hon. Hungry Smeed.

Somewhere between the fourteenth and fifteenth pancake, having solicitously offered the maple syrup, Snorky said casually:

"That's a jim-dandy idea of yours, old horse, about mosquitoes."

"I'm looking at it from all sides."

This answer did not satisfy Snorky Green's thirst for information, so he said encouragingly:

"It's a great idea. You must."

"Heard of Luther Burbank and what he does with plants?"

"Sure, that was in last week's lecture. Seedless fruit and all that sort of thing."

"Snorky," said Skippy meditatively, "who knows but some day a scientist will cross the mosquito with a butterfly?"

"What good'll that do?"

"It would take the sting out of the mosquito, wouldn't it?"

"Suppose it put it into the butterfly."

"If you're going to be facetious—" said Skippy, who, being sufficiently fed, rose with dignity, glad of the opportunity to postpone the discussion to another appetizing sitting.

For a week Snorky Green, greatly impressed by the concentrated moodiness of his chum's attitude, artfully fed him with pancakes, eclairs, Turkish paste, and late at night tempted him with deviled chicken and saltines to be washed down with ginger pop and root beer.

Skippy, having calculated nicely the possibilities of the exchequer, threw out progressively dark, mysterious hints that fed Snorky's curiosity, without any open gift of his confidence. Even Doc Macnooder, aware by all outward signs that the imagination which had conceived of the Foot Regulator was again fermenting, had laid his arm about his shoulders and led him to the Jigger Shop.

But the Skippy Bedelle, who had assumed the trials and tribulations of manhood, had profited by the first disillusionments. The trusting, childlike faith was gone forever and in his new, skeptical attitude towards human nature—Toots Cortrelle excepted—he had determined to part with as few millions as possible.

"I say, Skippy, how's it working out?" said Snorky at eleven P.M., producing the crackers and cheese, after having blinded the windows and hung a blanket over the telltale cracks of the door.

"Fine!"

"Is that all you're going to tell me?" said Snorky with his hand on the cheese.

"Not yet, but soon," said Skippy, whose appetite always betrayed his caution.

"In that case I serve notice right here I'm through with the financing!"

"The financing!"

"What else do you call it?" said Snorky indignantly, producing the last two quarters from his pocket, and restoring the cheese to its box.

"All that will go down to your credit account," said Skippy in a conciliatory tone. "I'll tell you this much. There's nothing in the butterfly idea—it would take too long."

"Huh! You didn't think I bit on that! Well, how're you going to clean 'em up? They destroy 'em in Cuba with kerosene—I've been reading up. Is it something like that?"

"Destroy them, why destroy them?" said Skippy reprovingly.

"Why not?"

"If you destroy mosquitoes you destroy your income, you poor boob," said Skippy with his superior manner. "Let 'em live—who profits? I do."

Snorky rose and produced the Bible.

"Come on," he said, in a fever of excitement. "I'm ready. Give me the oath."

"You'll take the oath on my own terms!" said Skippy, looking at him fixedly.

"What do you mean, terms?"

"Snorky, it's so big it may take years of investigation, you understand—"

"Sure."

"This time I'm not giving up any fifty-one per cent."

"Let her go!"

"And if any one goes in they go in on a salary!"

"Oho! I see."

"Well?"

"All right, I'll swear," said Snorky, after a brief wrestling between his curiosity and his financial instincts.

"It may be years working out," said Skippy sadly. "Maybe our children will live to see it; but Snorky, some day, I'm telling you, when the idea is perfected, the mosquito is going to starve to death!"

Snorky, without waiting to be prompted, hurriedly took an oath to guard the secret from man woman and child and called down the scourges of Jehovah on his nearest of kin if he should ever prove false.

"Snorky," said Skippy, folding his arms behind him and spreading his legs after the manner ascribed to the famous Corsican, "where do mosquitoes bite you the most?"

"Golly! Where don't they?" said Snorky, who, thus reminded, began to scratch back of his ears.

"Where do they bite where you can't hear them coming?"

"Legs and ankles," said Snorky instantly.

"Bright boy—you're getting closer."

"Danged if I can see it."

"Protect the ankles and the mosquito starves—am I right?"

"Hurry up," said Snorky, who by this time recognized that the first reasoning processes were simply eliminatory.

"That was my problem," said Skippy, frowning impressively. "Here is the answer—this is how it came to me." He went to the bureau and passed his hand into a sock, two fingers projecting through the devastated regions. "What do you call this?"

"That—that's my sock."

"You call 'em hole-proof socks," said Skippy, ignoring the aspersion. "You get it? You don't? Suppose we change it, suppose we use the same organization but call it—Mosquito-Proof Socks."

"Mosquito-Proof Socks!" said Snorky in a whisper.

Skippy, satisfied at the staggering effect produced, stood with a smile waiting for the full result.

"But, Skippy, is it—possible?" said Snorky faintly when he had brought his lower jaw back under control.

"That's not the way to look at it," said Skippy impatiently. "Is the idea A No. 1, or is it not?"

"The idea? My aunt's cat's pants—the idea!" said Snorky all in a breath, "Mosquito-Proof Socks! Why, it's—it's—it's—" But here Snorky stopped, nonplussed, having exhausted his supply of adjectives on the Foot Regulator.

"It is!" said Skippy firmly.

"But won't they be too heavy?"

"What the deuce—"

"Why, they'd have to be regular bullet-proof, wouldn't they?"

"Say! What do you think I'm talking about—Tin Socks?"

"Why, I thought—"

"Listen! This is the way you get at it," said Skippy, walking up and down in ponderous concentration but pausing from time to time to dip into the cheese. "You begin by looking at it from the point of view of the mosquito. A mosquito has got nerves, hasn't he, just like a horse or a cat or a bullfrog?"

"Sure he has."

"What frightens a mosquito most?"

"Is it a joke?" said Snorky thoughtfully.

"Green—"

"I apologize," said Snorky hastily, and he brought out a bottle of sarsaparilla.

"A horse shies at a bit of paper; a sneeze will scare a cat, won't it? Well, then, what will scare a mosquito—it's all there!"

"Well, what will scare a mosquito?" said Snorky, wide-eyed.

"That is the field of investigation," said Skippy in a melancholy voice.

"But you said Mosquito-Proof Socks!"

"I did. Suppose a harsh sound annoys a mosquito; all you've got to do is to suspend a tiny rusty bell—"

"I don't like that," said Snorky instantly.

"Why not?"

"It doesn't sound modest—"

"That is probably not the way," said Skippy, dismissing this objection with a wave of his hand. "I'm thorough, that's all. Supposing there are certain colors that scare him or make him seasick—red and purple or yellow and violet."

"By jingo! Now you're talking."

"Suppose the mosquito has some deadly enemy. Then all you've got to do is to work his picture into the design of the socks."

"Holy cats!"

"Supposin' it's just the sense of smell you get him by—"

"Citronella!" fairly shouted Snorky.

"Hush!" said Skippy, alarmed at the outbreak.

"Citronella!" said Snorky in a whisper.

"You see? Mosquito-Proof Socks is the idea—and there must be fifty ways of working it out."

"Cheese it!" said Snorky, dousing the light at a sound in the hall.

* * * * *

At a point somewhere between the witching hour and the dawn Snorky said in a tentative whisper:

"Hey there, Skippy! Are you awake?"

"What is it?"

"Gosh! Skippy, I can't sleep. It's just steaming around in my brain!"

"M. P. S.?"

"You bet. I can't see anything but them, millions of them!"

"Mosquitoes?"

"No—legs! Holy Jemima! Skippy, have you thought how many legs there are in the world? Why, in the United States alone twice ninety-two million. Think of it! And what'll they average in socks and stockings? I've been trying to work it out all night. Gee! My head's just cracking. If you multiply twice ninety-two million by seven pair of socks or even six—"

"Don't!" said Skippy angrily, and he thought to himself, "Thinking of money, thinking of money! How mercenary he is!"

"Standard Oil is nowhere," said Snorky feverishly.

"Don't I know it!"

"Oil'll run out but there'll always be mosquitoes and legs!"

"Darn you, Snorky! Shut up and let me sleep!"

But how was he to sleep with the vision that Snorky's avaricious imagination held out to him? All night long he tossed about restlessly, wandering in a forest of legs; white ones and red ones, black ones and yellow ones, tall ones and short ones, fat, thin, bow-legged and crooked, all the legs in the world waiting for him to rise up and protect them!

The next morning it was worse. All his imagination, suddenly diverted from the exact scientific contemplation, was halted before the stupendous contemplation of future profits.

"Snorky Green is a bad influence," he said moodily as he trudged out heavy-headed from morning chapel. Do what he might, the contamination spread. With all the long fatigue of patient investigation he knew was ahead, his mind leaped over the present and galloped into the future.

"Multiply twice ninety-two million legs by six pair of socks," he found himself repeating. "Oil may run out, but you bet there'll always be mosquitoes and legs."

Yes, it was greater than Standard Oil. It was fabulous to conceive of the wealth that would be his. All at once the John C. Bedelle Gymnasium seemed ludicrously inadequate. He would double the present equipment! There would be a second campus—Bedelle Circle! The school lacked water; he would create a lake for it and the John C. Bedelle Boathouse. . . .

* * * * *

"Bedelle, kindly shine for us. You may translate, John, but be cautious and not too free."

The Roman's mocking voice brought him precipitately to his feet. He opened his book but the passage had escaped him and though he dug Shrimp Bedient savagely in the back, no signal returned.

"Excellent so far, quite exceptionally excellent; nothing to criticize," said the Roman's rising and falling inflection. "Go on."

"Please, sir, I didn't do the advance."

The class roared and the Roman said:

"Too bad, John, too bad! No luck in guessing this morning. We're in the review, John. Too bad! Dreaming again, John? Don't do it, don't do it! The country will take care of itself, without you. Times are hard, John. Another year in the Second Form is a dreadful drain on Father's pocket-book. Sit down, John, and don't dream—don't do it."

* * * * *

Skippy sat down and glared at the Roman.

Some day, some day he would even institute a fund for superannuated teachers, he would! He would come back some day to the school he had made the greatest in the country; he would come as the BENEFACTOR and then the Roman, old, and decrepit in a wheeled chair, would be brought to him, to him, John C. Bedelle, whom as a boy he had held up to the ridicule of the class! What a revenge that would be, the proud and haughty Roman, the greatest flunker of them all, the Roman of the caustic tongue and the all-seeing eye, actually clinging to his hand, stammering out his thanks . . . the Roman whose mocking voice still echoed in his memory, "Don't dream, John, don't do it!"



CHAPTER XV

THE TENNESSEE SHAD SUSPECTS

THE Tennessee Shad, as has been told, was long, thin and full of bones. His imagination was chiefly occupied in initiating ideas which would be the cause of exertion in others. In the warmth of the budding season he came out of his winter cage and could be seen for long hours perched on his window sill in the Kennedy, legs pendent; like some dreamy vulture, surveying the horizon for a significant point.

There was little that escaped the Shad. For some time his curiosity had been stirred by the unusual attentions paid to Skippy Bedelle by his old side-partner, Doc Macnooder. Doc was eminently practical and if Doc devoted any part of his time to an inconsequential underformer, in the language of the day, there was something doing.

The early visits of Macnooder to Skippy's room at the time of the Foot Regulator campaign had been noted, likewise the subsequent cooling of the affection. So when after a few weeks' lapse Macnooder was again seen impelling Skippy in the direction of the Jigger Shop with a protecting arm over his shoulders, the Tennessee Shad whistled softly through his teeth and said to himself:

"I wonder what new flim-flam game is on?"

Now Macnooder was distinctly a trespasser, for Macnooder belonged to the Dickinson and Skippy was of the Kennedy and, by that token, his lawful prize. The Tennessee Shad's vigilance redoubled. He began to note the air of mystery and solemnity which hung over the two roommates, their frequent whisperings and the moments of intense excitement when, with locked arms and heads close together, they drew surreptitiously away from their fellows for secret conclave. When presently Greaser Tunxton, a solitary youngster who ranked high among the polers and high markers with a curious penchant for chemistry, began to be seen in their company, the Tennessee Shad's vigilance became acute.

One night, when after hours he was returning from a midnight spread in King Lentz's room, his ear detected unmistakable signs of activity behind Skippy's door across the hall. A quarter of an hour later two stocking-clad forms stole past his open door and slowly down the treacherous stairs. The Tennessee Shad followed.

* * * * *

Below, the door of Greaser Tunxton opened cautiously and as cautiously closed again. A moment later the Shad, now at the keyhole, heard the window open and the sounds of a foray into the night. He calculated nicely, passed into the room and out the window and took up the trail of the three shadows moving in the general direction of Memorial Hall.

Ten minutes later the Tennessee Shad, having stalked his prey in classic Deerslayer manner, reached the farther stretches of the pond and, flat on his stomach among the high grasses, heard the following mysterious dialogue:

"How's this, Skippy?"

"Fine! Must be millions of them."

"Do you suppose they sleep?"

"We'll wake 'em up."

"Shucks! It's only bullfrogs," thought the Tennessee Shad; but at this moment perceiving the three in clear silhouette against the faint moonlight, he instantly discarded that explanation. The three wanderers into the night were clothed in helmets, from which voluminous folds of cheesecloth descended to the waists, while each had his trousers rolled up well above the knees. The conversation continued, to his growing mystification.

"They're awake, all right. I can hear them coming!"

"You're the boss, Skippy. What's the order?"

"Twenty paces apart. Greaser, you shake the bell, slowly. Snorky, you stand here, and, mind you, no slapping or moving. Everything scientific."

"All right, but get a move on. Ouch, I've got two already."

"Red leg or blue leg?"

"Blue, darn it!"

"Fine! I'll count a hundred slowly. Start up, Greaser."

The low, harsh, grating sounds of a rusty bell slowly agitated began to be heard, punctuating the droning count: "Five, six, seven!"

"For the love of Willie Keeler, what is it!" said the Shad, more and more bewildered, as he rubbed one leg against the other and shook his head to protect himself from the many insects. "It must be a secret society and this is the initiation."

"Skippy?"

"Hello!"

"The bell's no good at all."

"Twenty-nine, thirty—remember your oath."

"Say! Count a little faster; I can't hold out much longer."

"Red leg or blue?"

"Both, darn it!"

"Any difference?"

The reply was too blasphemous to be set down here.

The Tennessee Shad, too, was paying dearly the price of his curiosity; so, being convinced that he had stumbled upon a secret initiation, he decided to get some enjoyment out of the situation. Presently, trumpeting his mouth with his hands, he emitted a long, wailing sound:

"Ugh, wugh, guggle, guggle!"

"Good lord! What was that?"

"Did you hear it?"

"It's a night owl that's all; fifty-six, fifty-seven—"

"Oonah, woonah, WOO, HOO!"

"Night owls nothing; it's ghosts!"

"There ain't no ghosts, you chicken-livered—"

But at this moment the Tennessee Shad, smarting from head to foot, let out an ear-splitting screech and the three experimenters in mosquitology disappeared at top speed. The Tennessee Shad, satisfied, emerged, examined with curiosity a discarded helmet smeared with citronella-soaked cheesecloth, and picked up a rusty dinner bell. This last stuck in the crop of his imagination.

"Secret-society stuff," he said to himself as he slapped his way out of the marsh. "But why the bell? Darn mysterious, that bell. . . ."



CHAPTER XVI

EXPERIMENTS IN FRAGRANCE

THE result of the first investigation in the likes and dislikes of the New Jersey mosquito brought a decided difference of opinion. It was admitted (given the swollen condition of Greaser Tunxton's legs) that the insect's sense of hearing was undoubtedly defective. Snorky Green was equally emphatic in expressing his conviction that all colors were alike to it, but Skippy insisted that it was not scientific to jump to a conclusion on the basis of one experiment.

"But golly! I had forty-seven bites on the red stocking and sixty-five on the blue, and if that doesn't prove anything, I'd like to know what!"

"It proves that blue attracts them more than red, that's all. We must now try other combinations."

"It proves one thing right here," said Snorky Green, dousing his legs with the second bottle of witch hazel. "I'm through on the human-experiment game, and that's flat."

"I'm inclined to believe we should concentrate on the sense of smell," said Skippy thoughtfully. "As a matter of fact the experiment turned out as I foresaw."

"It did, eh?" said Snorky wrathfully.

Skippy retreated to the other side of the table and hurriedly announced:

"I've been talking it over with Greaser here and the problem is narrowing down. Now what we've got to figure out is, shall we make it a washing solution or something that'll stick forever?"

"Washing solution."

"Sure we could wash the socks in some sort of preparation of citronella, couldn't we?"

"That's too easy. Any one could do that."

"Exactly! That's why we must experiment further. Greaser's got some very good ideas."

"Oh! Well, bring on your stinks; I can stand them."

"You can?"

"Sure."

"You swear?"

"I swear. What's the idea, Greaser?"

Greaser Tunxton looked at him hard and thoughtfully before replying.

"You see, citronella comes out in the wash, but there are one or two other things much stronger."

"Citronella's pretty strong!" said Snorky, who began to wonder if he had promised too rashly.

"Ever heard of asafoetida?" said Skippy, with his hand on the chemical genius.

"That's the stuff you put on the furnace at co-ed schools when you want a cut," said Snorky, who knew the story of Dink Stover's reasons for coming to Lawrenceville.

"It is quite possible," said Greaser in his smileless, scientific manner, "that, properly treated, a mixture of silk and cotton, possibly wool, will retain enough of the essential quality of asafoetida for at least a dozen washings—"

"Isn't citronella bad enough?" said Snorky, with a horrible misgiving.

"It's extremely doubtful," said Greaser, shaking his head, "but I don't want to say anything definitely before we make exhaustive experiments."

"Where?" said Snorky, shrinking. "If it's down at the pond again, good night!"

"Green!" said Skippy wrathfully.

"Bedelle to you!"

"The experiments can be conducted right here," said Greaser reassuringly.

"Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?" said Snorky, feeling a little ashamed. "Perhaps after all asa—asa—well, whatever it is, will come out in the wash, too."

"If it does," said Greaser proudly, "I've got something worse."

"Worse!" said Snorky, with a sinking heart.

"Worse!" said Skippy joyfully.

"If you put that on," said Greaser, meditating, "the socks will be better than mosquito-proof—even rattlesnakes wouldn't bite you!"

"Criminy! What is it?"

"I know what it is," said Greaser, wagging his head wisely, "but I can't pronounce it!"

* * * * *

Events now moved rapidly. The following morning, despite the draft which entered through three windows and swept out the door, the Roman stopped the morning recitation after five minutes of indignant commotion in the class and, making a detailed investigation, dispensed with the presence of Mr. Snorky Green, Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Mr. Greaser Tunxton (the last with incredulous chagrin) with a request to produce each individual bath record for the week.

At eight o'clock that night Snorky Green deserted the communal laboratory, bag and baggage, announcing that he was through once and for all, and sought asylum of Dennis de Brian de Boru. Finnegan, after the first whiff, barricaded the door and seized a baseball bat to repel any aggression via the transom.

At eight-thirty, the inhabitants of the second floor held an indignation meeting on the steps.

"Holy Moses! What is it?" said the Triumphant Egghead, smelling in the direction of the offending room.

"It's a dead cat."

"Smells like ripe sauerkraut and garlic!"

"No, it smells like asafoetida."

"The deuce you say! Asafoetida is a maiden's perfume to this!"

"Well, some one's dead."

"It's the Greaser, then."

"My Lord! This is awful!"

"Skippy's found a pet skunk."

"How in blazes are we going to stand it?"

"We won't."

When the odor had finally rolled down the stairs a house meeting was called and the offenders were summoned to appear. Skippy Bedelle and Greaser Tunxton responded and the house adjourned through the windows. Now it happened that the Roman was dining in Princeton that night and the conduct of discipline was in the hands of a young assistant master, lately transferred from the wilds of the Dickinson, Mr. Lorenzo Blackstone Tapping.

Tabby, as he was more affectionately known, was apt to be somewhat confused, as is natural, before an extraordinary crisis, and had made one or two lamentable blunders. In the present case, after immediately sending in a hurry call for the plumber, he departed in a panic for Foundation House, holding before him on a pair of tongs a pair of reeking football stockings which he had seized in the wash basin, while Skippy Bedelle, under strict orders, remained twenty paces to the rear and out of the wind.

Arrived before the dark and awesome, ivy-hidden portals of the Head Master's dread abode, Mr. Tapping carefully deposited the unspeakable mess against the stone steps, stationed the rebellious Skippy under an opposite tree and entered, in a fever of excitement.

"Great heavens!" said the Doctor, starting from his chair. "Are you ill?"

"No, sir, it's not myself. That is, it's—it's the whole house; it's young Bedelle, sir. The fact is, Doctor, the situation was so serious that I—I thought I'd best come to you directly, sir."

"Try to give the details a little more calmly and coherently, Mr. Tapping," said the Doctor, retreating behind a handkerchief and studying the young assistant with a growing suspicion. He indicated his guest and added, "Professor Rootmeyer of Princeton—Mr. Tapping, one of our younger masters."

Ten minutes later Skippy, shivering under the apple tree, beheld Tabby reappear, take up the tongs gingerly and return to the house. Almost immediately the window of the Doctor's study opened with a bang and there was an iron clank in the near roadway.

"I never smelled such a smell! Is it possible?" said the Doctor, coughing. "What is it?"

"Please, sir, I don't know," said Mr. Tapping miserably.

"You don't know and you are a B. S.?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Well, what is your explanation, or have you any explanation of this extraordinary occurrence?"

"I think, sir, the boy is completely unbalanced."

"Bedelle! He's always been steady and well conducted."

"He's been acting queerly lately, sir, and he absolutely refuses to give any explanation. The house, sir, is quite untenantable. I—I don't think the boys can sleep there to-night."

"Where is Bedelle now?"

"He is outside, sir—waiting."

"Perhaps I had better examine into this myself," said the Doctor, frowning. "Bedelle is a good boy—a bit of a dreamer, but a good, reliable boy. Mr. Tapping, you may return to the Kennedy and quiet them. I shall be over later. Keep Bedelle waiting—outside."

"Jim," said Professor Rootmeyer, the distinguished chemist, "there are only two things in God's universe can produce a smell like that—a dead Indian and butyl mercaptan."

The Doctor immediately discarded the first hypothesis.

"Frank, you've hit it. It is butyl mercaptan," he said, laughing.

"Well, how did you know?"

"I remember once when I was a shaver—"

"Go on," said Professor Rootmeyer as the Doctor came to a hurried stop.

"H'm, we are living in the present," said the Doctor after a second thought.

He rose and went to the doorstep.

"Bedelle!"

"Yes, sir."

The stench began to swell with the hurried approach.

"Stop there," said the Doctor hastily, and, having had his imagination sharpened by frequent contact with the genus boy, he added with sudden inspiration: "Go round to my study window. I will speak to you from inside."

A moment later Skippy's white face appeared, framed against the night.

"Bedelle, Mr. Hopkins reports that you were dismissed from first recital this morning, for being in a condition which unfitted you for association with your fellow beings. Is that true?"

"Please, sir, it was the citronella."

"Mr. Tapping reports that the stench arising from your room has made the house untenantable. Is that true?"

"Please, sir, that was asafoetida and—"

"And butyl mercaptan; I'm quite aware of that," said the Doctor quickly, to continue the tradition of omniscience.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Bedelle, what is your explanation? Were you trying to poison any one?"

"Oh, no, sir!"

"You were not contemplating self-destruction, were you?" said the Doctor, whose curiosity led him to adopt a light coaxing manner.

"Please, sir, I was experimenting."

"Experimenting! What for?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't tell you," said Skippy defiantly. He had foreseen the test, but he was resolved to be drawn and quartered before yielding up the secret of his future millions.

"You—can't—tell—ME?" said the Doctor in his pulpit sternness.

"No, sir. I've taken an oath."

"Do you realize, Bedelle, that you owe me an explanation, that if there is no explanation for this extraordinary attack on the discipline and morale of the school that I should be quite justified in requesting your immediate departure?"

"I know, sir. Yes, sir."

"And you refuse still?"

"It's an invention, sir. That's all I can tell you, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Please, Doctor, I'd like to stay in the school."

The Doctor considered. He was a just man and his sense of humor allowed him to distinguish between the vicious and the playful imagination. After long, agonizing moments for Skippy waiting at the window, he took a sudden decision.

"Bedelle?"

"Yes, sir."

"If I let you remain at Lawrenceville, will you give me a promise—that so long as you remain here, you won't attempt to invent anything else?"

"So long as I'm in the school?" said Skippy, broken-hearted.

"Absolutely. It's that or expulsion. I have four hundred tender lives to protect. Well?"

"I swear," said Skippy, with tears in his eyes.

The Doctor bit hard and said:

"Then I shall overlook this. Your record is in your favor. I shall overlook this. I have your word of honor, Bedelle. Good night."

Skippy drew a long breath and went hurriedly back to the Kennedy. But there he halted. The smell was awful and the comments which reached him through the open windows were not at all reassuring.

"I think—I think perhaps it's warm enough outside," he said, heavy-hearted.

* * * * *

For two more years he had solemnly sworn to refrain from inventing, and Skippy was a man of his word. No matter, there was this consolation: Mosquito-Proof Socks would some day be a reality; butyl mercaptan had proved its worth at the first test. He would devote himself to a scientific preparation. He was young. With twice ninety-two million legs to be protected with six pairs of socks or stockings a year, he could afford to wait.

"Before I'm thirty, I'll be a millionaire," he said defiantly. "I'll own race horses and yachts and boxes at the opera and I'll marry—" Here he hesitated and the figure of Lillian Russell somehow became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night in the baseball cage.



CHAPTER XVII

SOAP AND SENTIMENT

TEN days after the dreadful fiasco of the Mosquito-Proof Socks, when a corps of experts had succeeded in removing the stench from the upper floors of the Kennedy; when certain garments had been taken out under a vigilantes committee and had been publicly interred; when the three offenders had again been permitted to resume their membership in civilized society—Snorky Green began to be alarmed at certain disquieting symptoms in the conduct of Skippy Bedelle.

"I don't like it," he said, standing before his roommate's washstand in a dark reverie. "Danged if I like the looks of things. Somethin' is certainly doing. It certainly is."

He picked up a large new nailbrush, showed it to Dennis de Brian de Boru, who had been called in consultation, and shook his head.

"Spending his money on bric-a-brac like that—and that's not all!" he said indignantly.

"Let me know the worst," said Dennis who, perched on the table tailor fashion, had been ruminating, and when Dennis de Brian de Boru remained silent, the mental wheels were grinding rapidly. "Fire away, if you want to know anything—ask me."

Snorky proceeded to lift the broken cover of the soap dish, and brought forth a cake which he tendered gingerly to Dennis for his olfactory inspection.

"What a lovely pink stink!" he exclaimed, after one sniff. "Smells like the cook on her Sunday off."

"Are you convinced?"

"I am. Skippy, the human scent-box is undoubtedly in love. Object matrimony."

"He's got it bad this time," said Snorky, remembering that they had a reputation as lady-killers to maintain.

"If you will associate with 'em, it's bound to happen," said Finnegan in his rapid fire style. "I know the symptoms. My brother Pat went maudlin, when he was just Skippy's age. Ten years of it, presents Christmas and birthdays, flowers twice a month, postage stamps and letter paper, weekly bulletins and all that sort of rot! Ten years, and then he married a girl, best friend stuff, trust you together and all that—married her a month after he met her. Think of the expense. Not for me, old top—my money goes for race horses."

"You've nothing to worry over, you wild Irishman," said Snorky, who felt a certain presumption in this lesson.

"Casting aspersions? Oh, I don't know! I may not be beautiful, but women, proud women, have sighed as I passed."

"Run away," said Snorky impatiently.

"I was just going," said Dennis with dignity. At the door he paused for a parting shot. "Hard luck, old gormandizer. There won't be so many midnight spreads for you, now. Cut down the jiggers, shut up the pantry, tighten the belt! Skippy'll need his money for other things. Thank the Lord the only thing he can get into of mine, is a necktie. Hard luck!"

Perhaps a little of the practical reactions had occurred to Snorky, for he flung a shoe at the diminutive Finnegan and was still in a brown study when Skippy came in.

"If he starts to wash he's in love. Bet that's why he's been so friendly," he thought, waiting developments. "I thought it was queer he didn't sulk more after the big smell!"

In fact Snorky had been considerably puzzled at his roommate's actions after the fiasco of the Mosquito-Proof Socks.

"Any mail?" said Skippy nervously.

"I don't think so."

"Are you sure?"

"Come to think about it, there might be a letter over on the table."

The Byronic melancholy vanished from Skippy's face. He sprang to the table and seized the envelope.

"Feeling better?" said Snorky, noting the beneficial results.

"Much."

"You look ten years younger."

"You go to blazes!" said Skippy, but without anger. He went to the bed and flinging back the mattress uncovered three pairs of trousers slowly hardening into that razor edge which is the sine qua non of a man of fashion. Apparently satisfied, he next proceeded to the mirror, where, after a short inspection, he seized his brushes, dipped them into the water pitcher and laboriously began to reconstruct the perfect part that was beginning to replace the Skippy cowlick. Trousers may be brought to order in a few minutes, but to subdue a cowlick is a matter of years. Ten minutes' rigorous application of the brushes failing to produce results, he ducked into the washbasin, drove a line with the comb, slicked down the sides and applied a press, in the form of a derby, which process will subdue the most recalcitrant of cowlicks for at least two hours.

"Aha! Object matrimony?" said a squeaky voice.

Skippy looked up wrathfully to perceive the curious eyes of Dennis de Brian de Boru gazing from the transom. Both brushes went flying across the room, but Dennis knew when his presence was de trop. The episode shook off the derby and deranged the part. Snorky watched the process of reconstruction with a meditative glance.

"Skippy, old horse, you are so spick and span. Has love really come to you?"

"You go take a run and jump," said Skippy lightly and he began to whistle a genial air.

Now if Bedelle had denied the direct accusation, Snorky would have been certain of its truth, vice versa if the answer had been broadly affirmative, Snorky would have at once dismissed the suspicion. Skippy's light, de haut en bas manner left him unconvinced. Circumstantial evidence was all he had to go on, but the evidence was strong. Skippy undeniably was a changed man.

"What day is it?" said Skippy, who had been reading over the letter.

"Wednesday, you chump."

"Three days to Saturday," said Skippy with a sigh. He went to the washstand, poured out the water and began to scrub diligently at his nails.

"Well, you ought to get them clean by that time," said Skippy facetiously.

"What's that?"

"So you are in love?" said Snorky, shifting the conversation.

"What makes you think so?"

"Go ahead, open your heart, what's a roommate for?"

"You'd be a nice one to confide in! Why not shout it in a telephone?"

"Hold up, that's a raw deal," said Snorky rising wrathfully. "I may have weakened under that awful stink, but I kept the secret, didn't I? Didn't I stand up three hours against the whole blooming house and did they ever get a word from me about Mosquito-Proof Socks, and in the state of temper they were too? Oh, I say, come now, square deal you know!"

Skippy considered him more favorably. Besides, he remembered that by Saturday he would need to embellish his sartorial display with a few treasures from his chum's wardrobe. He sat down and took his head in his hands.

"Snorky, old fellow, you're right—I've got it bad."

"And you're going over to Princeton Saturday to meet her?" said Skippy, who saw a trail.

"Her, what her?"

"Mimi Lafontaine, of course," said Snorky with a sudden intuition.

"Her name is Tina," said Snorky tragically. "Her first name. Perhaps some day I can tell you her real name, not now."

"Rats, it is Mimi, and you're going over again to meet her at the game," said Snorky, who knew the Skippy imagination.

"So you think I'm going to Princeton," said Skippy looking at him wisely. "I am—but from there I am making a cut for New York. Get the point?"

"Oh, Tina's in New York?"

"She is." He hesitated a moment, and then weighing his words to give full value to their dramatic significance, he added—"She is on the stage."

"You're a thundering, whooping, common-a-garden liar," said Snorky, who felt that his sympathies were being trifled with. "Where in blazes would you know an actress anyhow?"

"And you asked my confidence!" said Skippy reproachfully. "Tina and I grew up together. She ran away a year ago. It's a terrible story, terrible! She's had the devil of a life, poor little girl. Gosh, if I were only twenty-one!"

"Skippy, if you are faking it again this time," said Snorky, whose confidence was shaken by the perfect seriousness of his chum's melancholy. "If you are, dinged if I'll ever believe another word."

"See here—did I volunteer to tell you?" said Skippy, who rose with a complete injured air. "That settles it. This is all you'll ever know."

And leaving Snorky in a ferment of curiosity he went to his desk, drew out a sheet of paper and began to run his fingers through his hair.

Snorky, as a matter of fact, had hit the nail on the head, though of course it would never do to have him suspect it. Skippy did not mind confiding to him his state of mind, in fact it was absolutely necessary if he were to go on without an internal explosion to seek some sympathy and understanding. But to admit to Snorky that he had actually succumbed to Mimi the Japanese brunette, particularly when the issue was still clothed in doubt,—was unthinkable. So Skippy invented Tina.



CHAPTER XVIII

LOVE COMES LIKE THE MEASLES

IT had all happened the Saturday before, when for reasons of her own Miss Clara Bedelle (the reasons taking shape in the heroic figure of Turkey Reiter, captain of the eleven, and the Triumphant Egghead, premier danseur of the school) had asked Skippy to invite those heroes, as she, being already wise in protective knowledge, preferred not to show her affection too directly. Skippy, on receipt of these sisterly directions, had been in a towering rage, for it had never occurred to him that men of the world such as Turkey and the Egghead would for a moment condescend. If it had not been for the added bait of a Princeton game, he would never have found the courage. The result upset all his preconceived theories, and it was not until he found himself on the high road to Princeton, actually squeezed into a buggy between two eager and enthusiastic lords of the school that he attempted to reason it out. The attempt, however, was beyond him. If girls as such were incomprehensible, how the deuce was he, Skippy Bedelle, to conceive that such a thing as a sister, particularly his sister, could arouse any enthusiasm?

"Guess it's the grub and the game all right," he reflected finally. "Anyhow they will let me alone, that's something."

At lunch it did seem that his wish was to be gratified and despite certain sisterly glances of reproach, he was able to secure a third helping of roast beef and a double portion of ice cream and cake, with the connivance of Miss Biggs the chaperone, while Sister and Miss Lafontaine attended to the chatter. So engrossed was he in this attempt to stock up for the long week ahead, that he completely failed to notice the comedy which was being played to the greater edification of Mr. Turkey Reiter and the obvious disconcerting of the Triumphant Egghead, who was being neglected flagrantly and openly for mysterious reasons known only to the ladies.

Skippy, therefore, was totally unprepared, as he was both shocked and terrified, suddenly to find himself at the side of Miss Mimi, with Turkey and his sister behind, while the Triumphant Egghead, not to give his tormentor any further satisfaction, was pretending to laugh uproariously at something that his companion, Miss Biggs, had just said. For five minutes Skippy was in the most complete funk of his life. His body seemed suddenly all hands and pockets and do what he would his feet would interfere as they had that awful day eight months before when he had descended into the family parlor in the first pair of long trousers.

"I think that Princeton is just the sweetest place in the world, don't you?" said Miss Lafontaine with the air of a great discovery.

"I'm preparing for Yale," said Skippy hoarsely.

"Oh, I'm so glad," said the young lady immediately, and sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, she added, "you know I'm Yale too though you mustn't give it away. I think Yale men have such strong characters, don't you? You can't help but admire them, can you?"

Skippy had no ideas upon any subject whatsoever at that moment, besides he hadn't the slightest idea what she meant. So he took out his handkerchief and then put it back suddenly, as he remembered that a nose was never blown in polite society. As Miss Lafontaine's sole object in appropriating Skippy was the reflex action on the Triumphant Egghead, it was absolutely necessary that Skippy should at least give the appearance of appreciating the privilege. Miss Mimi, therefore, decided to jump the fence of strict conventionality if the expression be permitted.

"Jack," she said, coming closer, "own up now, you are a terrible woman-hater, aren't you?"

"Damn all sisters," he muttered to himself. Then he looked up and met at the deadliest of ranges, the smiling, mischievous eyes of the Japanese brunette. Despite himself, he broke into a laugh.

"Girls do give me a pain," he said abruptly, "but for the love of Mike, I mean for heaven's sake, don't tell Sis I said that."

Miss Mimi immediately passed her hand through his arm.

"Won't you try very, very hard, Jack, to make an exception?"

He breathed hard and something warm went up his back like the warm ripple of the hot water when his body slowly immersed. If Snorky Green could see him now! Mimi hanging on his arm, Mimi's soft voice pleading with him, Mimi, just as she had done in the fictitious weeks, throwing herself at him, actually throwing herself at him! He tried to remember one of the dozen eloquent replies he had once evolved, but nothing came.

"I say, you're not a sister, are you?"

Miss Lafontaine was considerably puzzled by this but pretended that she was an only child.

"Well that makes a difference; I thought you couldn't be," said Skippy unbending a little, "you act differently."

"Oh I see," said Mimi, who had half expected a display of sentiment, "aren't you a funny man. So you don't approve of sisters?"

She had called him a man—perhaps after all his sister had not told the age of his trousers. He straightened up and answered, "Oh, I suppose they are all right—later on."

"Jack—you are a woman-hater!"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, beginning to be flattered, and he fell to wondering how he could call her Mimi, which of course was his right.

"I'll tell you a secret, but perhaps you know it already. Perhaps after all you are only making fun of me."

"Oh, I say, Mimi," he said all in a gulp and then blushed to his ears.

The young lady, noticing this, smiled to herself and continued:

"Well, if you are simply pretending, it's a very good way to get a lot of attention, but of course you know that."

"I? What? Oh, really you don't think!"

"Well, I don't know. Because of course that is what does make a man interesting. It is such a compliment when he does take notice. Now a man like Mr. Sidell who jollies every girl he meets—"

"The Egghead is a terrible fusser," said Skippy with new appreciation of his own value, "you should have seen him at the Prom."

"Did he have Cora Lantier down, the blonde girl with the big ears!"

"She was blonde but I didn't notice the ears. She was down two weeks ago."

"Oh, she was?"

Miss Lafontaine glanced backward and snuggled a little closer. Skippy began to be aware of the strangest of symptoms; at one moment he felt a rush of blood to the forehead just like the beginnings of bronchitis, the next moment his throat was swollen as though it were the mumps, yet immediately there came a weakness in his knees that could only be influenza. The warm contact of the little hand penetrated through his sleeve, the sound of her voice shut out all other sounds in his ears, and when he met her eyes his glance turned hastily away and as avidly returned.

Mimi Lafontaine at the age of nineteen knew very little of the school curriculum, but had a marked aptitude for the liberal intuitive arts.

"Mimi would flirt with a clothes horse, if you flung a pair of trousers over it," a dear friend had said of her, and on the present occasion she was deriving a good deal of pleasure from the situation. The attitude of a young lady of nineteen, about to emerge into society, vis-a-vis with a youngster sprouting out of his first long trousers, particularly when he happens to be the brother of a best friend, is a fairly obvious one. There is no excitement to be derived but a certain amount of exercise. A fisherman is necessarily a man who enjoys catching fish, and if trout are not rising to the fly, sitting on the edge of the wharf and hauling in suckers is still fishing.

At the end of the afternoon Skippy was head over heels in love. If he had had the opportunity he would have trusted her with the secret of his life's ambition—the Bathtub and the Mosquito-Proof Socks. But Miss Mimi was too busy extracting information about the Triumphant Egghead (who had countered by steadfastly devoting himself to Miss Biggs) and certain sentimental chapters in the past of her best friend in which she had had a revisionary interest. These subtleties naturally were beyond the experience of Skippy, in fact he was quite unable to reason on anything. His heart was swollen to twice its natural size, his pulse was racing, and the next moment with the wrench of the farewell, he felt in a numb despair, the light go out of the day, and a vast sinking weight rushing him down into chill regions of loneliness.

"Say Skippy, old sporting life," said Turkey Reiter, speaking over his head to the Egghead, who was in a terrific sulk, "How do you do it?"

"Do what, Turk?"

"Why, my boy, you're the quickest worker I ever saw; I thought the Egghead knew his business, but he's a babe, a suckling to you!"

"Mimi Lafontaine is the damnedest little flirt I ever met," said the Egghead, with a slash of his whip which sent the buggy careening on two wheels.

"Hold on there!" said Turkey, grabbing the reins. "I've got to live another week. Well, Skippy, my hat's off to you, old sporting life. You've got her feeding out of your hand. . . . And Mimi too, right under the Egghead's eye!"

"Oh, come off now, Turkey," said Skippy, to whom this light badinage was torture.

"Shucks!" said the Egghead, "you know her game."

"Well you played a pretty slick game yourself, old horse, but how did you enjoy Miss Biggs?"

"You go chase yourself," said the Egghead, flinging the remnants of a cream puff at the horse, which kept Turkey busy for the next five minutes.

Skippy scarcely heard. All he wanted was to have the drive over and to be alone with his memories. How bold he had been at the end when he had crushed her little hand in his! Had she understood—and just what had she meant when she had said,

"And so it's Jack and Mimi now, isn't it?"

That night at precisely 10.45 in his sixteenth year, hanging out of the second story window of the Kennedy, with a soul above mosquitoes, Skippy Bedelle discovered the moon.

* * * * *

Forty-eight hours later, Skippy suddenly realized that the hot and cold symptoms, the loss of appetite, the inability to concentrate his mind on either "The Count of Monte Cristo" or "Lorna Doone," the hardness of his bed, the length of the day were not due to either German measles or the grippe. He was suffering from something that neither Dr. Johnny's pink pills, nor his white ones nor the big black ones could alleviate. He was in love, genuinely, utterly, hopelessly in love.



CHAPTER XIX

THE URCHIN BEGINS TO BLOOM

THE first result of young love was a sudden aversion to the well-known but freckled features of Skippy Bedelle. The examination in the looking-glass had left him in a condition of abject despair. Only a man, full-fledged and resplendent, could hope to hold the affections of the dazzling Mimi Lafontaine, and what a tousled, scrubby little urchin he was! That night he spent one dollar and twenty cents, out of a slender reserve, for toilette accessories, and began the long fight for a part in the middle of his reckless, foaming hair.

The next day marked a milestone in the sentimental progression of Mr. John C. Bedelle. For the first time in his life, his astonished eyes encountered a little blue envelope inscribed to his name in a large, dashing, unmistakably feminine hand. Neither mother nor sister, aunt or cousin had ever addressed that letter. He picked it up and then set it down with a sudden swimming feeling. It was postmarked "Farmington."

"My Lord, if it should be from her," he said.

There was, of course, one sure way to solve the difficulty, but Skippy was too overcome by his emotion to imagine it. Instead, he sat down and contemplated it with a mystical veneration.

"It can't be. No, no, it can't be from Mimi! Good Lord, no. A girl doesn't write to a man first," he said, shaking his head. "It's from Sis. It's a joke, and she's got some one else to address it. That's it."

He opened the letter, which read as follows:

DEAR JACK,

I'm writing you for Clara, who is, as you know, a dreadfully lazy person. School is over and I shall bring Clara back to Trenton with me day after to-morrow. Are you so bored with my dreadful sex or have you made a little exception? Any way, this is to warn you that you may have to be my cavalier once more if we decide to go again to Princeton.

Faithfully yours, MIMI.

I saw Cora Lantier in New York. She is going up to the Williams Commencement with a very dear friend. Don't tell this to Mr. Sidell.

There are, of course, three ways of contemplating a letter written by a young lady, according to whether the recipient be a friend, is in love, or being in love, loves without hope. Skippy used all three methods. That night he placed four pairs of trousers to press under his mattress, discarded the dicky (a labor saving device formed by the junction of two cuffs and a collar which snapped into place and fulfilled the requirements of table etiquette), and painted the ends of his fingers with iodine to break himself of the habit of living on his nails.

On the following Saturday, Mr. Sidell being still, as it were, under absent treatment, Mr. Turkey Reiter making the fourth, Skippy experienced the terrifying joy of sitting in the back seat next to Miss Mimi Lafontaine.

"You bad boy, why didn't you answer my letter?" said that young lady, after a careful inspection of the embarrassed Skippy had resulted in much increased satisfaction.

"I wrote you three times," he said, staring at his shoes.

"Three—then they must have gone to the school."

"I tore them up," he said, under his voice.

Between a feminine nineteen and a masculine fifteen, much is permissible. Miss Mimi, under protection of the rug, slid her little hand into his painfully-scrubbed one.

"Poor fellow!" she said softly.

"Gee!"

It was not exactly the last word in romance, but it came from the heart, a sort of final gasp as Skippy felt the waters closing above him. With her hand in his, something rose in his throat and he had to fight back the dimming of his eyes. By the time they rolled into Princeton there was no longer need of explanation. He felt that she knew beyond the shadow of a mistake, just what he felt for her, he, Skippy, who had never loved before. Of course she was not pledged. That he comprehended. She was yet to be won. The years between them were nothing. Josephine Beauharnais was older than Napoleon. By the time they returned to the school, he had opened his heart impulsively and spread before the astonished ideal of his affections the treasures of his inventive imagination. Miss Lafontaine had been sympathetic. She had understood at once. She had rather lightly passed over the Bedelle Improved Bathtub. The subject, of course, was a delicate one; but the idea of mosquito-proof stockings had captured her imagination. With her faith acquired he could wait for years the coming opportunity.

"Why, Jack, I never heard of such an imagination," she said, converting an explosive laugh into a sneeze in the nick of time.

"Oh, that's just a beginning," he said confidently. "I've got bigger things than that stored away."

"Why, you'll be richer than Rockefeller!"

"That's only a small part of it," he said carelessly. What of course he had wished her to know, and he flattered himself that he had done it with great delicacy, was that he was a prize worth waiting for.

"You didn't tell Mr. Sidell about Cora, did you?" said Mimi irrelevantly, as they arrived at the school and she began anxiously to scan the passing groups.

"You bet I didn't, good Lord, no, Mimi."

"I was sure I could trust you," said Miss Lafontaine,—who of course had hoped for quite a different issue.

"Gee! this has been one day," he said, half smothered with emotion.

"Has it really?" said the young lady, giving his arm a little squeeze.

"I shall never, never forget."

"Jack, that's what they all say."

Her skepticism pained him. He wanted to do something, something heroic to show her the manly quality of his devotion.

"I don't suppose there's any chance of your getting permission to come back with us for dinner," said Clara Bedelle to Turkey.

"About as much chance as my passing a Bible exam," said Turkey cheerfully.

A great idea smote down on Skippy,—he would accomplish the impossible!

"Swear to keep a secret, Mimi?" he said in a whisper.

"I swear."

"I shall call on you at exactly nine thirty to-night."

"Good gracious, but we're ages away."

"What difference does that make? There is something I've just got to say to you."

"But if they catch you!"

"They won't."

"But, Jack, how will you get there?"

"I'll come on the run," said Skippy gorgeously; which proved that if his experience was limited he had certain intuitions to build upon.

When Skippy directly after supper bolted to his room and began to scrub for the superlative toilette, after collecting a pair of kid gloves from Butcher Stevens and a purple tie from Dennis de Brian de Boru, Snorky Green was finally convinced that matters had reached a serious pass.

"I thought you were in New York," he said, remembering Skippy's previous declaration.

"What? Oh yes!" Skippy, whose mind was not on consistency, hastily caught himself. "Oh, Tina! She came down to meet me."

"What in the mischief are you up to now?"

"For the love of Pete don't bother me," said Skippy. "Tell you later. Honest, Snorky, it's serious, and I'm in a devil of a hurry."

He struggled into his best pair of low blacks, and suddenly a new perplexity arose. What would they look like after five miles tramp through the fields and the dust? Yet if he openly pocketed a shoebrush and cloth, how explain this to the ever-incredulous Snorky? The window was open. He simulated a final polish and profiting by a favorable moment tossed the brush and cloth out into the dark. Then he stationed himself before the mirror for the final struggle to achieve a part.

"Looks like last year's toothbrush," said Dennis de Brian de Boru, via the transom, his usual defensive position.

"Looks like the home rooster when the imported bantam has left," said Snorky.

"Looks like a cat that's walked in the mucilage."

"That'll be quite enough," said Skippy, whose patience was evaporating.

"Vaseline'll do the trick," said Dennis softly.

Vaseline! Skippy seized upon the idea in desperation. But to his horror, once the part was achieved, the slippery and sticky effect of the flattened hair was horrifying.

"Where in Moses is that Irishman!" he cried, slamming open the door.

"Face powder will take the shine off," said Snorky, after an immersion of the head in the washbasin had aggravated the catastrophe.

"My Lord, I've got to do something," said Skippy, almost in tears. Snorky came to his rescue and between a vigorous rubbing with a bath towel and a liberal sprinkling of talcum powder, an effect was finally produced which at least was not shiny. Skippy, who had been glancing at his watch every three minutes, ended his toilette in a whirl.

"How much money have you got?"

Snorky produced three quarters.

"I'll send it back to you if I don't return."

A light burst over Snorky, confirming his worst suspicions.

"Skippy," he said, seizing his arm, "you're running away! You're going on the stage!"

He had not thought of this, but he appropriated the suggestion at once by avoiding a denial.

"Snorky, old pal," he said solemnly, "stand by me now. When it's all over I'll write you."

"But, good Lord, Skippy—"

"Don't try to stop me. My mind's made up."

"But I say—"

"I've given my word," said Skippy tragically. "If I'm not back by eight o'clock to-morrow morning, mail this letter to my mother and give this to the Doctor. Good-bye. God bless you—and I'll pay you back the first money I earn."



CHAPTER XX

THE HEART OF A BRUNETTE

HE recovered the shoebrush from under the window of Tabby, the young assistant house-master, and tucking it into his pocket, skirted the outer limits of the school, dodged behind a fence, and creeping on all-fours, made a wide detour via the pond and rejoined the high road to Trenton which lay five dusty miles away. Luckily the evening was overclouded and the shadows protecting. His problem was not simply to arrive at the Lafontaines' at exactly the hour but to arrive there with a cool and dignified appearance. It was hot, and the derby hat pressed down on the vaselined hair was hotter than anything about him, hotter even than the parched fields and the steaming asphalt which yielded to his feet.

"Gosh, I oughter have brought a towel," he said, when at the end of twenty minutes he stopped to remove his hat and allow the hot vapors to escape. He sat down and fanned himself vigorously. Then he took off his necktie and collar and placed them in his pocket, and finally shed his coat under favor of the night. He could scarcely distinguish the road beneath him, and several times only saved himself from sprawling on his nose by a convulsive grasping at a nearby fence. But what did the toil, the heat, or the terrors of the night matter? He was going to see her again. Not only that but he would come to her surrounded by the romance of a great danger run, just to sit in her presence, to hear her voice, to see in her eyes some tender recognition of what he had dared for her. This was romance indeed!

A dog came savagely out of the night. How was he to know that a fence intervened? He ran a quarter of a mile and again sat down. It grew hotter; he was dripping from head to foot. A wagon or two went by, but he did not dare to ask for a ride, for fear of encountering some agent of the Doctor's secret police. For, perhaps, his absence was already discovered and the alarm had gone out.

The heat and the discomfort somewhat interfered with the free play of his imagination, but the quality of romance still kept with him.

"When I'm twenty-one," he said to himself again and again, in a vague defiance of all the hostile powers of Society. Only five years and six weeks intervened before the glowing horizon of liberty. Did she care? Even that did not matter. She knew what the future held for him. The main thing, the thing to cling to, was that her heart was kind. Of that there could be no question. How gentle and how understanding she had been! He could come to her and tell her anything—absolutely anything!

"Good Lord, what a difference it makes to have some one you can trust," he said solemnly to the night. "Some one to work for!"

At nine o'clock he reached the outskirts of Trenton, and having cooled off, put on his collar and necktie. Then he stopped at a stationer's to ask his way. A large florid young woman, chewing gum, was behind the counter, patting down her oily chestnut curls.

"Say, can you tell me where the Lafontaines live?" he said with an extra polite bow.

Fortunately she knew and directed him.

"You're one of them Lawrenceville boys, ain't you?" she said, eyeing with curiosity the oozy ruffle of his hair.

Skippy was shocked at this easy discovery of his youth.

"Come off. I'm a member of the Princeton faculty," he said loftily.

"Well, I think you're one of them Lawrenceville boys," she said, following him to the door.

He waved back gaily and went skipping up the street. He arrived before the Lafontaine mansion with exactly five minutes to spare. The old Colonial house was set back in a wide plot and masked by convenient foliage. Skippy, passing down the side wall, sheltered himself behind a bush, his heart pumping with excitement, and drew on the gloves which he had borrowed from Butcher Stevens. Then extracting the shoebrush and cloth from his pocket, he busied himself hurriedly with removing from his trousers and shoes all traces of the dusty way he had come. This done, he hid the brush and cloth under the bush and straightened up. Unfortunately either the last preparations or the terrific sentimental strain of facing his first call upon a member of the opposite sex had so increased his temperature that his forehead was again covered with perspiration.

"Great Willies! I can't go in like this—if I only had a handkerchief—what am I to do?"

But just at the moment when he had improvised into a towel the most available part of his shirt, his heart stood still at hearing above him the following conversation:

"Mimi, you're a witch," said the voice of his sister, "I never would have believed it."

"Well, my dear, you wanted me to wake him up. I've done it. Goodness, I never saw any one go down so quickly. I really believe he's going to propose! If you could have seen his funny eyes when he told me that there was something he just had to say to me."

"For heaven's sake keep it up. It's better than soap, Mimi. One look at his hands and I knew he was in love."

"My dear, what do you think—he's had my photograph for weeks—the one I gave you, of course. Now if that isn't a real romance. . . ."

"He ought to be spanked, that boy—stealing away from school!"

"My dear, he's told me all about his life's ambitions."

"What's that?"

"It's something about a bathtub—some sort of an invention that's going to revolutionize the bathtub industry."

"Then it must be the outside of a bathtub," said Clara with a sisterly laugh. "Mimi, I just must hear his proposal."

"You'll laugh and spoil it all."

"On my honor!"

Ten minutes later, Miss Mimi Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting of betrayed confidence and broken illusions, a complete moral transformation had made of the urchin a man in the embryo, fired by the burning impulses of the deadliest hatred?

He did not stumble or wind himself up in the curtain or upset the bowl of goldfish on the slight etagere by the sofa. He came in with a manner that was so completely nonchalant that Miss Mimi was manifestly impressed.



"Why, Jack, you don't look as though you had run at all," she said encouragingly.

"Oh, I picked up a buggy and took it easy," he said, seating himself and arranging the trouser crease with nicety. Then having perceived under the sofa the telltale slippers of Miss Clara Bedelle, he added, "I say, how did you ever keep it from Sis?"

"Oh, she thinks it's another caller," said Mimi, staring a little. "Really, Jack, I'm beginning to suspect you're an old hand."

"Well, of course this isn't the first time," he said, leaning back and sinking his fists in his trousers pockets.

Miss Mimi gave a gasp of astonishment.

"Well, I never, and all you said to me too about the photograph and the letters you tore up."

"Did you really believe all that?" said Skippy with a smile that seemed to cut across his face. His heart was bursting; yet the task of revenge was sweet. "You know Sidell and I are old hunting partners."

Miss Lafontaine sat upright, forgetting everybody in the dismay of her discovery.

"Jack Bedelle, do you mean to say that it was all fixed up between you two?"

Again Mr. John C. Bedelle smiled.

"Oh, we know a trick or two, even if we're still in school."

Miss Mimi's look was not such as is generally ascribed to the gentler sex. She bit her lip and said furiously:

"You just tell Mr. Sidell—" and then, quite suffocated with rage, she stopped and flung a little fan, furiously, across the room.

"Now I see her as she is," thought Skippy with a healing delight. Aloud he added: "Oh, if you really want to know the truth about Sidell, just ask Sis. She probably put him up to the whole game."

Now this was rather crude, and at another time Miss Lafontaine would have detected the artifice and consequently divined the whole fabrication, but at present she was quite too angry, particularly when she realized that her best friend was a witness to her discomfiture.

"Just what do you mean by that?" she said angrily.

"Why, they've been sweet on each other for a couple of years," he said, with malice aforethought. "Guess you're not on to Sis. She'd steal anything with pants on that came within a mile of her. Ask her sometime about the mash notes the plumber's boy used to shoot up to her window, or perhaps you'd better not, it gets her too hot. But anyway I advise you to keep your eyes open." He rose, for the sudden shifting of the slippers back of the sofa warned him it was time to depart.

"Good-bye, Mimi," he said carelessly. "Two can play the same game, remember that."

Then, calculating the moment, he bumped into the etagere, upsetting the goldfish, and as the dripping figure of Miss Clara Bedelle emerged with a scream, Mr. Skippy Bedelle, Chesterfieldian to the last, departed saying:

"He laughs best who laughs last."

* * * * *

He arrived at the little stationery shop without having seen where he had been going, his eyes blinded with rage, his mind filled with bitter imprecations. Of his night's infatuation not a vestige remained except the weakness of disillusionment and the suffering of a proud nature.

"Well, Professor, how was your girl?"

He looked up to see the dark-complexioned lady still methodically chewing away.

"She's like all the rest," he thought darkly, "fooling some man, I bet."

Then his eyes fell on a group of photographs in the shape of postal cards; a wonderful assortment of fleshlings, of young ladies who dazzle and display abundant charms before the footlights. He remembered that an explanation was due to Snorky, and that the explanation would have to be very convincing. One photograph fascinated him; it was so like the way Tina would look, if there were a Tina!

The young lady in graceful tights, legs crossed in a figure four, elbow resting on a marble column, her chin supported by the index finger, was smiling out at him with a full dental smile.

"Say, do a fellow a favor?" he said.

"Sure for a nice boy like you I will," she said, encouragingly.

"Just sign across here—it's a joke."

"Oh, it's a joke?"

"Yes, of course. Sign 'Faithfully yours,'—no—'Fondly yours.'"

"Fondly yours," said the gum chewer, writing with a flourish.

"Tina."

"T—I—N—A."

"Turner."

"Indeed, I'll not!" said the girl with sudden indignation. "Turner's my name, and I can't have any such picture—"

"All right, all right, make it 'Tanner' then."

With the photograph as evidence safely bestowed in an inner pocket, he set out on the long homeward trudge. The weakness was gone, his imagination was now all on the story he would have to tell Snorky. Heavens, what had been crowded into one short hour;—love, treachery, revenge and triumph! Once a sudden rush of tears caught him, but he fought down the mood. The test had been soul-trying, but the victory was his. So he marched along, blowing out his courage as he chanted a defiant marching song and if Providence had but endowed him with a tail, he would have carried it proudly like a banner as he stalked across the campus and found his way into the Kennedy.

"Who is it?" said a startled voice.

"Hush, it's Skippy."

"Thank God."

Snorky jumped up and caught him in his arms with such genuine emotion that Skippy was profoundly touched, so touched that he almost made a clean breast of this affair—almost but not quite.

"What happened? You look all shot to pieces," said Snorky, holding up a candle and gazing at him in awe.

"It's all over," said Skippy stonily.

"Over."

"She'd have had to give up her career and—and I'm too young yet to support her."

"Honest, Skippy?" said Snorky, with a lingering doubt.

"Here's all that's left to me now," said Skippy, and he brought forth the photograph.



CHAPTER XXI

WORLDLY WISDOM OF SKIPPY BEDELLE

WHEN Skippy Bedelle (rage and disillusionment in his heart) had tramped five weary miles back from the city which sheltered that angel of perfidy, Miss Mimi Lafontaine, he said to himself on waking the next morning:

"Well, by the Great Horned Spoon, that's one thing I won't bite at again." And examining himself in the glass with a new respect—for after all he had handled the situation with magnificent impertinence and if the story was to be retailed in the home circles it would never be introduced by Miss Clara Bedelle—examining himself, then, with a certain pride and satisfaction he said vaingloriously, "Hurray, I'm vaccinated!"

"How d'ye mean vaccinated?" said Snorky whose head emerged via the morning jersey.

"Did I say vaccinated?" said Skippy surprised and cautious.

"You certainly did," said his chum, who observing the rapidity of his contact with the washbasin, the reappearance of the dicky and the two strokes of the brush which completed his toilette, added with a sigh of relief, "I say, old horse, you look more natural."

Skippy immediately returned to the convenient Tina Tanner. He picked up the statuesquely posed photograph, contemplated it and returned it to its place with the air of a man on whom a great passion has burned itself out.

"She was an awfully decent little sort," he said meditatively, "but it would have been an awful mess if I'd done it."

"Done what?"

"Followed her on the stage."

"Say, whatever made you think you'd succeed on the stage, you chump?" said Snorky, who always retained a lingering doubt when Skippy grew confidential.

"Oh, I don't know."

"Well, the way you got off 'Horatius at the Bridge'—"

Skippy stretched his arms and yawned deliciously.

"Gee, but a fellow can make an awful fool of himself," he said, thinking now not of the fictitious Tina but of the explanations which must have taken place between his sister and Miss Lafontaine.

"A nice wreck you'd have made of your life, you big boob," said Snorky taking up the photograph and smelling it curiously to see what perfume an actress employed. "So her name's Tanner, eh?"

"Her stage name."

"You couldn't have married a woman like that."

"Not a word against her."

"Well, anyhow are you vaccinated?"

"Bitten, vaccinated and cured!"

* * * * *

Now when Skippy spoke thus from his heart it was in absolute faith, without the slightest suspicion of the natural course which a habit inevitably must take. A habit is after all but an acquired appetite, and what appetite was ever begun with instant enjoyment! No inveterate smoker ever appreciated his first cigar and the most persistent of tipplers choked once over the first distasteful introduction to the demon rum.

So be it recorded in this history of the sentimental progress of Skippy Bedelle. The impulse which sends the boy back to a second trial of the cigar that stretched him pale and nauseated on the ground, or leads him to a new attempt at the alcoholic mixture which scorched his throat, alone may explain how it came to pass that Skippy, after the first disillusioning contact with the opposite sex in the person of Miss Mimi Lafontaine, should in the first week of his summer vacation have fallen under the despotism of Miss Dolly Travers.

There were, as will be seen, extenuating circumstances and perhaps likewise much may be explained by the instinctive belief which is implanted in mankind, that woman is twofold, and that the brunettes of the species are less deadly than the blondes, or vice versa, according to the first contact.

When Skippy Bedelle arrived for the long summer vacation at the family home at Gates Harbor, he arrived with a fixed program which is here detailed in the order of its importance.

1. To grow at least two inches and to acquire an added ten pounds in weight.

2. To achieve this necessary progression towards his athletic ambitions, to sleep at least fourteen hours of the day and to eat steadily and consistently during the remaining ten.

3. To impress the governor with the necessity of increasing his allowance.

4. To conceal from his mother the devastation of that portion of his wardrobe which is not a matter of public display.

5. To reduce sisters No. 1 and No. 2 to an attitude of proper respect, consistent with the approaching dignity of his sixteen years.

6. To thrash Puffy Ellis for the third consecutive summer.

7. To obtain permission for a two weeks' visit to the home of his chum, Snorky Green.

In all of which, be it observed that the feminine portion of society occupied not the slightest place.

* * * * *

On a radiant afternoon in mid-June, Skippy, having finished the last bar of peanut brittle and made sure that no vestige remained of the box of assorted chocolates which had preceded it down the Great Hungry Way, assembled three comic weeklies and four magazines, gave the porter a quarter for his ostentatious devotions and descended at the station, with exactly seven cents in his pocket, having calculated his budget to a nicety.

His patent leathers were in a decidedly shabby condition and cracked over the instep, but his brown and green check suit, the yellow tie and the new panama with the purple and white band were irreproachably bon ton. He stood a moment supporting himself on a light bamboo cane, contemplating his dress suit-case, which he acknowledged was not up to form. Not only had the straps rotted away, but there were strange depressions and bulges in it due to the Waladoo Bird's two hundred and twenty pounds having fallen upon it. Furthermore, it was stained with the marks of a root beer orgy and Snorky Green's mistaken efforts to remove the same stains with a pumice stone.

Skippy after a moment's deliberation, decided not to insult the hackman with an offer of seven cents and having consigned the unspeakable bag to the truckman proceeded on foot twirling his cane and trying to appear unaware of the admiration of the villagers who were particularly impressed by his perfect pants.

The Bedelle homestead was a large ornamental, turreted and bastioned mansion, consonant with Mr. Bedelle's increasing prosperity and Mrs. Bedelle's social importance.

"Gee, the Governor certainly ought to stand for a raise," said Skippy to himself, with a proper appreciation of the velvety lawns, the flower gardens and the green and white stables. Then he remembered the none too brilliant record of the scholastic year which was sure to come up for discussion and fell into a sudden despondency.



CHAPTER XXII

GIRLS AS AN EPIDEMIC

AS he turned up the walk, sister No. 2, aged fourteen and a half, came romping off the porch and the following conversation took place.

"Hello, Jack."

"Hello, Tootsie."

"You idiotic boy, why didn't you telegraph?"

"What's the use? I'm here," said Skippy to whom a quarter of a dollar was an object of reverence.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?"

Skippy glanced around.

"Oh, I suppose so."

"Good gracious, he's got a cane!"

"Say, who let you put your hair up anyhow!"

"I'm fifteen."

"Come off."

"I say, Jack, awful glad to see you, honest, and let's stop fighting this summer. You help me and I'll help you."

Skippy looked at her suspiciously.

"Getting on society airs," he thought, but out loud he announced: "All right, Tootsie, but see you don't begin. And if you want to help out, tell the Governor to make my birthday present in cash. I'm awfully strapped."

"Now for old Clara," he said to himself and remembering the last encounter when he had upset the gold fish over her, he braced himself for the shock. But to his profound amazement Miss Bedelle was honey itself.

"Good gracious, Jack, how big you've grown," she said after he had submitted to the second sisterly embrace, "and such style, too! What a fascinating tie! Dad and mother are out but Sam's just home. Come on up and see how nicely I've arranged your room. How are you anyhow?"

"Hard up," said Skippy instantly.

"Would this help any?" said Miss Clara extracting a ten dollar bill from a well-filled purse.

Skippy gulped in astonishment.

"What's the matter?"

"How do you mean?"

"Gee, sis, are you going to be married?"

"The idea, you funny boy!" said his sister, blushing violently. "Run on now and see Sam."

"What's the matter with everyone anyhow?" said Skippy to himself. "There's a reason. There certainly is a dark reason."

Still pondering over the motives for this unaccountable reception he proceeded along the hall, to the room of his heart's idol, his brother Sam, senior at Yale and star of the nine, Sambones Bedelle, known at school as Skippy the first, about whose athletic prowesses the tradition still remained.

"Who's that?" said the great man at the sound of his knock. "Skippy? Come in and let's look you over."

"Hello, Sambo," said the young idol-worshipper, sidling in.

The older brother caught his hand, slapped him on the back and held him off for inspection.

"By Jove, you young rascal, you're sprouting up fast. Whew, what a suit! Pretty strong, bub—pretty strong."

"I say, do you think—"

"Never mind. I've worn worse. Paid for?"

"No-o—not yet."

"Anything left of the allowance?"

"Sure."

"Not possible!"

"Seven cents."

"Could you use a five spot?"

"Gee, Sam!"

"All right, all right. Pick it out over there on the bureau. How's your conduct?"

"Pretty good."

Skippy, perched on the window-seat, watched with an approving eye the splendors that a college education had bestowed. Sam's hair parted without a rebellious ripple and lay down in perfect discipline. There never were such immaculate white flannel trousers, such faultless buckskin shoes and tie, while the socks and the touch of handkerchief which bloomed from the breastpocket were a perfect electric blue.

"Well, Skippy, I'll have to look you over," said Sam carelessly. "Time you had a few pointers. What did you do at school?"

"Substitute on the eleven and left field on the house nine," said Skippy, who understood at once the meaning of such an inquiry.

"First rate. Haven't started on the demon cigarette yet?"

Skippy hesitated.

"Let's see your fingers," said the mentor, who perceiving no telltales traces of nicotine grunted a qualified approval. "Well, how much?"

"Oh, just a few whiffs now and then up the ventilator. You know how it is, Sambo!"

"Cut it out this summer. Your business is to grow. Savvy? If ever I catch you, you young whipper-snapper—"

"All right, Sam."

Skippy the first held him a moment with a stern and disciplinary eye and then relaxing, said as he contemplated the hang of his trousers before the mirror, "I hear you've started in to be a fusser."

"Who told you that?" said Skippy with the rising inflection.

"I ran in on Turkey Reiter."

"Oh," said Skippy relaxing. "With Miss Lafontaine? That was all a put-up game!"

Sam considered him and noting the fatuous smile shook his head and said:

"Well, bub, you're at the age when they fall fast and easy. Now listen to a few pearls of wisdom. Got your ears open?"

"Fire away, Sambo!"

"If you've got to fall and you will—sure you will, don't shake your head—if you've got to fall, don't trail around on an old woman's skirts and get treated like a dog—fetch and carry stuff. Look the field over and pick out something young and grateful. Something easy. Something that'll look up to you. Let her love you. Be a hero. Savvy?"

"Huh! Girls give me a swift pain," said Skippy with a curl of his upper lip.

"Wait and count the pains," said Sam with a grin. "You're at a bad age. Well, I have spoken. What's the use of having an older brother if he can't do you some good?"

It being only four o'clock, Skippy decided to look up the Gutter Pup, who with the Egghead, represented the school contingent at Gates Harbor. Lazelle, more familiarly known as the Gutter Pup, Gazelle, Razzle-dazzle and the White Mountain Canary according to the fighting weight of the addressee, lived just across lots.

With three months' respite ahead from the tyranny of the chapel bell, three months of home cooking, fifteen dollars in his pocket and nothing to do but to romp like a colt over pastures of his own choosing, Skippy went hilariously over the lawns, hurdled a hedge and hallooed from below the well-known window.

"Hi there, old Razzle-Dazzle, stick your head out!"

A second and a third peremptory summons bringing no response, he went cautiously around the porch.

"Why it's Jack Bedelle," said the Gutter Pup's sister from a hammock. "Gracious, I never should have known you!"

"Hello yourself," said Skippy, acknowledging with a start the difference a year had brought to the tomboy he had known. "Say, you've done some growing up yourself."

He ended in a long drawn out whistle which Miss Lazelle smilingly accepted as a tribute.

"I say, Bess, where's the old Gazelle?"

"Charlie? Why he's gone out canoeing with Kitty Rogers."

"What!"

Miss Lazelle repeated the information. Skippy was too astounded to remember his manners. He clapped his hat on his head, sunk his fists in his pockets and went out the gate. The Gutter Pup spending his time like that! He made his way to the club where more shocks awaited him. On the porch was the Egghead feeding ice cream to Mimi Lafontaine. On the tennis courts Puffy Ellis and Tacks Brooker were playing mixed doubles! Skippy could not believe his eyes. What sort of an epidemic was this anyhow? He went inside and immediately a victrola started up a two-step and lo and behold, there before him whirling ecstatically about the floor, held in feminine embraces, were Happy Mather and Joe Crocker, the irreconcilables of the old gang!

"Hello, Skippy, shake a foot," said Happy Mather encouragingly. "Want to be introduced?"

"Excuse me," said Skippy loftily. "What's happened to the crowd? Can't you think of anything better than wasting your time like this?"

"Wake up!" said Happy, making a dive for a partner. "You're walking in your sleep."

Skippy went sadly out and down to the bridge where he perched on a pile and contemplated the swirling currents with melancholy. What had happened? After an hour of bitter rumination he rose heavily and engrossed in his own thoughts passed two ice-cream parlors, utterly forgetful of the sudden wealth in his pockets. On the way home he perceived something white and pink moving lightly in airy freedom, while at her side laden to the shoulder with sweaters, rugs, a camp stool and a beach umbrella was Sam. He came rebelliously to the home porch and then hastily ducked around to the side entrance, for the porch was in full possession of Clara who was entertaining a group of men. He sought to gain his room noiselessly via the back parlor and came full upon Tootsie who was showing a book of photographs to a pudgy, red-haired boy, who blushed violently at his intrusion and stood up, until he had acknowledged the embarrassed introduction and escaped.

"What in thunder's gotten into everybody anyhow?" he said to himself disconsolately. "Girls, girls everywhere. The place is full of them and everybody twosing, twosing! What in Sam Hill is a regular fellow to do! Gee, but it's going to be a rotten summer!"

So in this melancholy seclusion, gazing out of his window, at the green landscape vexed by the omnipresent flash of white skirts, uneasily conscious that a crisis had arrived in his social progress that would have to be met, Skippy began to commune with himself and likewise to ruminate. His first contact with female perfidy had destroyed half his faith in woman; never again could he trust a brunette. Some day he might permit himself to be appreciated by a blonde, but it would take a lot of convincing. But it is one thing to have fixed principles and another to resist the contagions of a whole society. Virtue is one thing but loneliness is another.

"What the deuce is a regular fellow going to do?" he said. But already his resentment had given way to a brooding anxiety. All at once, he remembered that he too had loved. Something that had been dormant awoke, as the touch of spring awoke the great outdoors.

"For I must love some one, And it may as well be you."

The refrain haunted him. Had the time come when even he would have to descend?



CHAPTER XXIII

THE BLONDE OF THE SPECIES

SUNDAY was a nerve-racking problem in days when the New England tradition still held. There was no fishing, no tennis, no baseball, and no golf. Picnics were taboo. There was of course a large amount of eating to be done, but after fish-balls, griddle cakes, and pork and beans for breakfast, a heavy sermon, and a heavier roast beef for dinner, the long afternoon had to be lived through in a sort of penitential expiation. One dozen fed-to-bursting, painfully primped young human colts, ranging from fifteen to seventeen years of age, gathered in the Gutter Pup's barn and mournfully debated the eternal question of what to do.