Now Miss Tupper was upright and God-fearing and self-respecting, and though there was a difference of three years all in her favor, she, unlike some of her sex, scorned the use of her personal attractions, simply for the sake of a personal vanity, nor was she a collector of male scalps. She was in a moral quandary of the most metaphysical complexity. What should she do: shirk her evident moral responsibility and allow a bravely battling human soul to sink into iniquity or continue and permit a most susceptible youngster to immerse himself deeper and deeper into a hopeless passion?

Each day she came to the task of regenerating Mr. Skippy Bedelle resolved to conduct the proceedings on the grounds of the strictest formality, and each evening she admitted to herself the failure. Yet could she honestly blame herself? She gave him her female sewing-society pin to wear not as a personal token but solely as a daily reminder of the promises he had made to himself. She gave him a tie, a colored handkerchief and the sweater she had just finished for another destination. But each was given as a reward and marked a triumphant progress in his fight to acquire a final mastery over himself. When, however, Skippy brought up the question of a photograph, a crisis was reached.

"I have never never given my picture to any man," she said firmly, and the absence of sibilants made it doubly impressive. "And I never never will. Bethideth, you know I would have to tell my mother."

They were sitting in the summer house at that romantic hour when the first day stars arrive with the mosquitoes. It was always at such moments that the craving was strongest. She had begun by holding his wrist in a strong encircling clasp but the sight of his twitching contorted fingers had been too much for her sensibilities and her hand had slipped into a more intimate clasp.

"After all he's only a boy," she had said to herself.

"Jennie! how can you—don't you—do you realize all I'm doing—just for you?" said Skippy, whose voice at such moments was not under control.

"No, no, you ought to do it for yourself, becauth it ith the right thing to do, becauth it will make you feel stwonger and finer."

"Nope, it's you or nothing."

"Jack, you muthn't thay thuch thingth. I muthn't let you!"

"It is the first time I've ever cared what became of me," said Skippy lugubriously. "You don't know what that pin means to me."

"But—"

"Do you realize what I'm going back to? Old associations, old habits and a long, long, fight! And then there's Snorky. I've got to save him too."

"But Jack—"

"I'm not asking for anything more than just your picture, nothing more,—nothing that commits you to anything! But I do want that, I must have that! I want to rise up every morning and remember and, and I want to come back every night and know that I can face your eyes," said Skippy warming up. "I say it must be a full face, not a profile, you know."

"I haven't thaid I would," said Miss Jennie in dreadful perplexity.

"But you will."

There was a long silence.

"You will, won't you!"

"I—I will think it over," said Miss Tupper finally, remembering the terrific report which her sister had brought her via Snorky Green. "I will give you my dethition after thupper."

That evening, Skippy, excusing himself from Snorky, who was taking Margarita to a lecture on the fauna and flora of Yucatan, set out for the parsonage with a thumping heart. If the truth be told he was not altogether convinced of the durability of his attraction for Miss Jennie, but he was quite certain of one thing, if there was even a sporting chance of Snorky's adding the blonde sister to his photographic gallery in the communal room in the Kennedy House, he could never confess failure! The state of his own emotion perplexed him. When he was away, he could look on with a certain amused calm as though the whole thing were but a fascinating game. Indeed, at times he felt gorgeously, terrifically guilty, the gayest and blackest of black Lotharios. Yet no sooner had he looked into the soft velvety eyes and felt the touch of her warm fingers than he was certain, absolutely certain that his life's decision had been made, that he wanted to stand forth as a man of the strongest character, and slowly and patiently struggle upward to those heights where serenely she would wait for him.

He consumed three cigarettes—rapidly and faithfully, to make up the seven of the daily quota, mutually agreed upon; flicked the dust off his shoes with his handkerchief, tightened his belt and his tie, and, having fanned himself with his hat, found at last the courage to tread the noisy gravel and ring the bell. On his way he had built up a dozen eloquent conversations, but all memory of things tender and convincing were forgotten as he ventured over the slippery floor of the parlor and beheld at the side of Jennie a large blown-up, thin-haired male visitor in ecclesiastical black, who was introduced to him as the Rev. Percy Tuptale.

Intuition is a strange thing that fortunately returns to lovers, drunkards and children in their hour of need. From the first touch of her hand and the first look into her face Skippy knew that a crisis had arrived. Mr. Tuptale was so placidly and professionally at ease and Miss Tupper so nervously and unsibilantly conversational that the conversation bubbled on like a kettle steaming in a distant room. He nodded once or twice, Mr. Tuptale fingered a magazine while Jennie ran on softening the s's.

"Something awful is going to happen," thought Skippy, staring at the biblical engravings on the wall. "They're going to try to make me give back that pin."

Miss Tupper stood up. Skippy stood up. Mr. Tuptale stood up.

"Jack, I have taken a therious, a vewy therious thep," said Miss Tupper flushing. "I do want to help you tho much but, but I have thought, that ith, I am afwaid I know tho little how. You may think it dweadful of me—"

She paused and Skippy frozen to the marrow said icily,

"Yes, what is it?"

"I have gone to Mr. Tuptale—to Perthy for advithe. I, I had to."

"Excuse me," said Skippy loftily. "Is Mr. Tuptale, are you,—is he?"

"Well, yeth," said Jennie, blushing, while a smile spread enormously over Mr. Tuptale's features.

"Oh!"

"You thee that ith why," said Jennie hastily, "and, oh Jack, I do want you to talk to him, juth ath you talked to me. Tell him evwything. He ith tho helpful and tho underthanding."

She swayed from one foot to another and glanced from the boy to the man, undecided.

"Jennie, dear," said Mr. Tuptale with surgical ease, "I think ahem—suppose you let us talk this over together. It would be easier, wouldn't it?"

"Oh yeth, indeed!"

The next moment they were alone.

"And now my boy," said Mr. Tuptale blandly. "Come, sit down. Let's have it out like man to man."

Skippy did not at once comply. He walked slowly around the red plush rocker and then back to the bamboo fire-screen and rested his elbows lightly upon it and glowered at the all-unconscious curate, murder in his heart.

"Jennie is very fond of you, Jack," said Mr. Tuptale, caging his fingers. "She has a warm and sympathetic nature, a big heart, and I can quite understand how deeply concerned she is in the brave fight you are making. I want you to accept me as a friend, a real friend. I know men and I know what temptations are, early associations, acquired habits. Jack, my boy, there is nothing really wrong in you. I saw that the moment you came into the room."

"Who said there was—pray?" said Skippy, whose hands were trembling with rage.

Mr. Tuptale looked up quickly, frowned and said:

"Jennie has told me all—naturally."

"She told you I gambled."

"She did."

"She told you I drank, and she told you I smoked."

"She did, of course, and I consider it was her duty to do so."

"Well is there anything wrong in that, I ask you?"

"Anything wrong in gambling, drunkenness, steeping oneself with tobacco until your hand shakes like a leaf?" said Mr. Tuptale, rising.

"Exactly. Do you know your ten commandments, sir?"

"Are you insulting me, sir?" said the curate, yielding to a perfectly natural irritation.

"Kindly point out to me in the ten commandments where any habit of mine is forbidden," said Skippy with the most impressive of declamatory attitudes.

Mr. Tuptale's jaw dropped, twice he tried to answer and twice remained inarticulate.

Skippy possessed himself of his hat and bowed in scorn.

"You will kindly restore to Miss Tupper this pin," he said, producing it after a struggle with his tie. "Also inform her that I shall immediately send back to her other articles I need not now specify. Thank you for your interest in my case but it is quite unnecessary—quite. I can stand by the ten commandments. Good night."

He went down the scrunching gravel and slammed the gate.

"And there is more, sir," he exclaimed aloud, forgetting that he was now alone. "One thing more. You can tell Miss Tupper that even among the lowest of my associates, gamblers and drunkards and race-track sharks though they be, a promise given is sacred, sacred, sir, and the man who breaks it is, is, is—"

But here rage quite overtook him and he picked up a stone and flung it at an inoffensive tree.

"It's all Snorky!" he said in the swift progress of moods. "I knew he'd overdo it! Holy Mike, what in Sam Hill did he tell Margarita! He must have—he—" But again imagination failed him and he proceeded on his way, fists sunk in his pockets, sliding along gloomy lanes.

"And I believed I had met a good woman!" he said bitterly. "Faugh, they're all alike. Well, I don't care what does become of me. Serve her right if I went plump to the bad. And by jingo, I'll do it too!"

Whereupon, having resolved upon a life of crime, he plunged his hand into his pocket and cast from him the now unnecessary cigarettes!



CHAPTER XXXV

THE SCALP HUNTER

SKIPPY in his sentimental progress had now reached the point where if he could not control the impulses of his sentiments he could at least review the past with some instructive profit.

"Girls are queer things, aren't they?" he said ruminatively to Snorky Green, for the mood of confidence was on him.

"Queerer and queerier," said Snorky, considering the bosom of last night's dress shirt with a view to future service.

"They get you before you know it and as soon as they get you they worry the life out of you. One way or the other they start to making you miserable just as soon as you show them you've fallen for them. Now why?"

"Woman has no sense of gratitude," said Snorky, who had heard the phrase from a brother who had suffered.

"And you can't be friends with them—well you know, just friends."

"I know," said Snorky heavily.

"What gets me," said Skippy, "is why we fall and fall and fall."

"Habit."

"Well, perhaps."

"Sure, habit, that's all."

"But this is the queerest of all," said Skippy, yawning and stretching his arms deliciously. "How darned fine you feel when it's all over. You go to bed thinking the bottom's been kicked out of things and you wake up feeling so Jim dandy rip-roarin' chuck full of happiness that you wonder what's happened, and then you remember that you're cured! Your time's your own. You can wear, do and say what you like, spend your money on yourself. You're free! Now it is queer, isn't it?"

"Like having a tooth out?" said Snorky.

"Exactly."

"Say, what story did you cook up about me to Margarita Tupper?" said Skippy, tying the white cravat for the sixth time.

"Bygones is bygones," said Snorky evasively.

"You must have had me robbin' a coach or skinning a cat," said Skippy encouragingly.

"You were throwing yourself away there, old top," said Snorky, avoiding the direct answer. "Why in another week you'd a been reading little Rollo and taking to crocheting—a girl who lisps like that, too! Whatever was eating you, anyhow?"

"She talked like a shower bath," said Skippy unfeelingly, "but her eyes were lovely. Well, that's over."

"What's the use? You'll fall again."

"Never," said Skippy firmly. Then he qualified it. "That is, not in the same way."

"There ain't no two ways."

"Sure there is. It's like swimming. You can dive in or you can sit on the bank and splash with your toes—Savvy?"

"Ha! ha!"

"Wait and see. I know a thing or two."

Twenty minutes later, having assumed the full glories of evening dress (with studs of the good old-fashioned style that remained anchored), they departed for dinner at the Balous across the way.

"Say, put me on," said Skippy, who like all artists of the imagination was seized with an uncontrollable nervousness before facing an audience. "Who's in the party?"

"Only Charlie and Vivi."

"Vivi?"

"Real name's Violet but she's dressed it up."

"What's she like? What's her line?"

"Stiff as a ramrod—prim as an old maid, conversation strictly educational."

"Well, what does she look like?"

"Flabby as a cart-horse."

"Say, what the devil—"

"Grub's o.k. and there'll be fun after," said Snorky by way of justification.

"How's the old folks?"

"Mr. Balou? He's a terror, gives you the willies. If he doesn't freeze you the old girl will."

Skippy's traditional scepticism of any statement with the Snorky stamp would have warned him at any other time. But this being in a way a new experience in strange waters, his nervousness got the better of him. Halfway up the driveway he plucked Snorky's sleeve.

"Listen."

"Let go me arm you chump."

"What do you say to them?"

"Say to whom?"

"Mr. and Mrs."

"Talk about the weather, you ignoramus."

"Sure I know that, but afterwards, at dinner, what do you talk about there?"

"Don't worry, that's what girls are for."

Despite which advice, Skippy nervously ran over his conversational ammunition. There was of course Maude Adams to begin with. He tried hard to think of some book he had read—some work of sufficient dullness to serve up to this blue stocking atmosphere.

"Stop shootin' your cuff," said Snorky, applying his finger to the bell. "Don't you know anything about society?"

"Who's nervous?" said Skippy indignantly.

His backbone stiffened to the consistency of the white manacle that imprisoned his throat, he brushed the slight powder of the dust from the shining patent leathers, which in the fashion of the day extended in long pointed toes, shot back his cuffs for the twentieth time, felt surreptitiously to assure himself that his part was functioning properly and slid behind Snorky Green as he entered the parlor.

Something that was neither prim nor stiff nor in the least resembled a cart-horse bore down on them with a swish of ruffled skirts.

"Hello, Arthur, how nice of you to come. Dad and Mumsy are out so we're all to ourselves," said Miss Vivi Balou. "Mr. Bedelle? Oh I've heard a lot about you!"

"Really now, what do you mean?" said Skippy, with a long breath of relief.

Miss Balou held his hand just an extra minute as she said this, looking up into his face with an expression of the greatest interest. She was just over five feet, of the dreaded species of brunettes, with a thin, upward pointing little nose and the brightest of eyes.

"Oh I know a terrible lot," she said, giving to her mischievous glance just the slightest, most complimentary shade of apprehension.

Mr. Skippy Bedelle grew two inches toward the ceiling and looked for a mirror.

Two strictly plain young ladies, roommates of Miss Balou's from Farmington, with large black sash bows in their hair, were introduced as Miss Barrons and Miss Cantillon.

"Elsa Barrons is perfectly wonderful with the dumb-bells, look at her forearm, and Fanny isn't good looking but awfully clever," said Miss Balou in a whisper which was already confidential.

Brother Charles now sauntered in and shook hands with the magnificent condescension of a sophomore.

"Have a cigarette before dinner?"

He flashed a silver case and tendered it to Snorky, who being unprepared, hesitated, and took one.

"Cigarette?"

"Love to but I'm in training," said Skippy.

Charles, having arrived at the age when everything should weigh heavily upon a sophisticated appetite, bored with his sister, bored with sister's plain looking friends and bored with sister's beaux, retired to the fireplace, where he draped himself on the mantelpiece and looked properly bored with himself, an illusion of greatness which was peculiarly impressive to tadpole imaginations.

The arduities of the opening conversation were fortunately interrupted by the announcement of dinner and Skippy, with Maude Adams in reserve, found himself at table between Miss Balou and the swinger of dumb-bells.

"You're a Princeton man?" said Miss Barrons after several long breaths.

Skippy apportioned the compliment to his manly air and the magnificent lines of the dress suit.

"No, I'm Yale. That is I'm preparing," he said carelessly, and hoping that Snorky wasn't listening he added: "Family didn't want me to go in too young, you know."

"Oh yes, I know," said Miss Barrons with an appreciative glance at his precocious brow. "I think that's much better too. You don't have half as good a time if you go to college too young."

"Eighteen's about right," said Skippy in a more mature manner.

The subject being exhausted Skippy counted up the forks while his companion, to appear at ease, asked for the salt to put in her soup.

"Do you know Jim Fisher?" she said suddenly. "He's going to Yale next year."

Skippy did not know Jim Fisher.

"I wonder if you know a perfectly dandy girl?"

"Who's that?"

"Alice Parks."

Skippy did not know Alice Parks, though she lived in New York City. Likewise with a growing feeling of his profound social ignorance, he successively admitted that he did not know Cornelia Baxter, Frances Bowen or Harry Fall. Whereupon Miss Barrons abandoned him to converse with Charles who did know Alice Parks who was so attractive and Harry Fall who had such a strong character.

"What the devil is there to talk about," said Skippy to himself as he fidgeted with the soup. "What an awful bore society is."

There was Maude Adams, but how was he to get to her?

"I'm just crazy about harps," said Miss Cantillon, who was clever. "I think they're wonderful."

"Harps—oh yes," said Charles Balou.

Miss Cantillon appealed to the table.

"Do you like them better than violins?" said Miss Barrons doubtfully.

"Oh much better!"

"They're too big," said Snorky wisely.

"Yes, that is the trouble. It's a perfect shame too. They are too big to carry round but they are so melodious. I don't like the piano—it's so cold—"

While the conversation raged on the proper classification of musical instruments, Miss Balou turned from Snorky to Skippy and looked him once more in the eyes with her interested glance.

"Yes, I've heard a lot about you," she said with a knowing look.

"Really now?"

"You're a perfectly ghastly flirt," she said, lowering her voice. "You give a girl a terrific rush for a week or two and then pop off without even saying good-bye. Never mind though. I'm warned."

Again the look, the interested look of trying to discover the secret of his fascination. It was quite unlike the way any other girl had ever looked at him. Other girls looked at you side-wise or averted their eyes when they met yours. But this was different. It was mocking, impertinent, insinuating, but it did not displease him. He saw that he had made an impression, an instantaneous impression. He mystified her perhaps but he interested her intensely. For the first time he had conquered with a look.

"Who told you?"

"That's telling."

"I'll bet I know."

"Bet you don't."

"Bet I do."

"What'll you bet?"

"Two pounds of chocolates against a necktie."

"Done, who is it?"

"Some one here."

"Nope. You've lost."

"Who then?"

"Some one who knows Dolly Travers," said Vivi with a mocking smile.

"Oh!"

"Brute," said Vivi in the greatest admiration.

"Really I—"

"Now don't be modest—I hate modest men. It makes it twice as bad. She's very attractive, isn't she?"

"Very," said Skippy, feeling every inch a man.

"But she's rather young—for you, isn't she?" said Vivi artfully.

"They put glasses on cows in Russia," said Miss Cantillon importantly. She had a reputation as a brilliant conversationalist to uphold.

This assertion woke up the table.

"Cows?"

"Glasses?"

"Fanny dear, how excruciating!"

Even the sophomore was surprised into expressing his incredulity.

"Colored glasses on account of the glare of the snow," said Miss Cantillon.

"Fanny!"

"Fact, in Siberia. I read it in the papers."

"Cows can't live in the snow."

"But Siberia isn't all snow."

"Most of it is."

"Isn't it wonderful the things she knows?" said Vivi admiringly. "Do you like brainy women?"

"That depends," said Skippy while he stopped to consider. "I don't know any."

"Oh what a dreadful cynical remark!" said Vivi with another admiring look. "Heavens, I shall be frightened to death what I say to you. I'm sure you're awfully clever yourself. Perhaps I'll have a chance. Clever men hate clever women, don't they?"

"There is certainly something about my particular style of beauty that's bowled her over," thought Skippy to himself.

"Oh I don't know," he said, fatuously unconscious of the virtues he conceded to himself. "Dolly Travers was quite clever, you know."

"Brute!" said Miss Balou for the second time.

"Oh come now—"

"Do you know what I think about you?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you'd be lots of excitement at a house party," said Miss Vivi, shaking her head. "Just for a few days. I think you'd give a girl the grandest sort of a rush, but as for believing a word you said—never!"

"What do you mean?" said Skippy, immensely puffed up.

"It shows in your eyes," said Vivi with a look of having at last deciphered the mystery. "Besides, girls have spoiled you. You have had things too easily. No wonder you're conceited."

Miss Cantillon was discoursing brilliantly on a crow that had been struck by lightning in Oklahoma and had fallen into a wheat field and set fire to the grain, which had precipitated a conflagration which had necessitated calling out the fire departments of two counties.

"You're offended now," said Vivi in a contrite whisper.

"Some one's given you an awfully bad opinion of me," said Skippy stiffly, frowning to show the displeasure he did not feel.

"Well it's true, isn't it?"

"It is not!"

"How about Jennie Tupper?"

"Oh that!" said Skippy burying the memory with a wave of his hand.

"You see you are a brute! Well I don't mind. I like your hands."

Skippy took a precautionary glance at the ends of his baseball fingers and then allowed them to come to rest on the tablecloth.

"Now you're trying to jolly me," he said astutely.

"No. I always notice hands the first thing. They tell so much about your character. I saw yours at once."

"You can read hands?" said Skippy, who knew this much of the etiquette of the game.

"Yes, but not now," said Vivi in a promissory tone.

Skippy's attitude towards social functions underwent a change of front. He began to feel confidently, vaingloriously at ease. He joined in the general conversation determined to rout the brilliant Miss Cantillon, who knew so many things. Now the rule for such preeminence is simple and some acquire it by cunning and others by instinct. Deny the obvious. Reputations have fattened on nothing else. When inevitably the moment arrived to discuss Maude Adams, and her latest play, Skippy announced that he did not like Maude Adams.

"Not like Maude Adams!"

There was a sudden silence and all eyes were turned expectantly toward him as to a manifestly superior intelligence. Finally the swinger of dumb-bells voiced the question.

"But why?"

Skippy considered.

"Too much like Maude Adams," he said cryptically.

Vivi looked at him in admiration.

"How clever, I never thought of that."

"Well, I'm just frantic about Maude Adams!" said the athletic Miss Barrons stubbornly.

"Because you like Maude Adams," said Skippy as a clincher.

By one bold stroke he had become a personage and what is more perceived that he had become one. Different topics were served up for his judgment. He pronounced flatly against colleges for women, woman suffrage and bobbed hair, predicted the election of Mr. Bryan and the probable division of the United States into four separate republics. Even Snorky Green, who was floundering along on the subject of blazers vs. sweaters, was impressed, and as for Miss Cantillon, she tried to stir up a little commotion by introducing the subject of The Lady from Narragansett who had removed freckles by watermelon rinds, but the effect was tepid and she relapsed into a listener.

"Say, where did you get it?" said Snorky in a whisper as they passed out to the veranda.

"Get what?"

"All this bright boy stuff! Why you're the little boy orator yourself."

"I'll tell you how it's done sometime," said Skippy magnificently.

"Do you like views?" said Vivi, coming to him as a moth to the brightest flame.

"That depends," said Skippy, who being still in a mood of negation was unwilling to concede anything.

Miss Vivi accepted this as acquiescence and, it being early moonlight and dangerous underfoot, took his hand to lead him safely around the flower beds. Skippy having just discovered the secret to success encased himself in indifference and waited developments.

"Isn't it romantic! Don't you love it?" she said, arrived at a little summer house that jutted out over the darkling waters.

"It's rather nice," said Skippy, sternly repressing his emotional tendencies.

Vivi now ostentatiously disengaged her hand.

"Please."

"Is it safe now?" said Skippy anxiously.

"How perfectly horrid of you," said the young lady in pretended indignation. "You make fun of everything, even the most sacred things."

The relevancy of this was lost on Skippy who condescended to say,

"View isn't half bad if the moon weren't so dreadfully lopsided."

"Unsentimental wretch! I suppose you want to go back?" said Vivi reproachfully.

"Are there mosquitoes?"

"Just for that I'll keep you here until you're eaten up," said Vivi, plucking a spray of honeysuckle and inhaling it with a sigh. "Isn't it wonderful, don't you adore honeysuckle in the moonlight?" she added, transferring it to his inspection.

Skippy inhaled it loudly and announced that it was all right.

"Jelly fish," said Vivi throwing it away indignantly.

Skippy resented "jelly fish."

"Well you are! I never saw such a cold calculating unemotional brute. You're nothing but a great big icy brain."

Skippy thought of the Roman and a hundred flunkings.

"Better pull in on the infant phenom—Snorky might hear of it," he thought.

"Oh, I like it here," he said in a more romantic tone.

"Really?"

"Yep."

A long silence and Vivi inhaled another sprig of honeysuckle and devoured the moon.

"How long you going to stay?"

"About a week."

"Oh!"

Another silence.

"You're so different."

"How?"

"Don't know but you are—quite, quite different. You seem so much older than Arthur."

"Well that all depends," said Skippy, ready to draw on his imagination.

"You've seen a lot of life, haven't you?"

"Yes I suppose so."

"I saw that—in your hands."

"I say, how about reading my character now?"

"No, not now, sometime later, perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"Well I don't know if I'd dare. What are you doing to-morrow?"

"Nothing particular."

"Suppose we get up a hay ride and a picnic. The moon will be glorious."

"Bacon and roast corn? Hurray!" said Skippy, most unromantically.

Vivi got up suddenly.

"Let's go back."

"All right, but it's awfully dark."

"Follow me."

Skippy walked purposely into the first flower bed.

"Help, I'm lost!"

Vivi stood considering.

"Are you sorry?"

"Dreadfully. Ouch, I'm in a rose bush!"

"And you promise not to be cynical and aloof?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Skippy, very well pleased with himself.

Immediately the hand was offered and retained. To be magnanimous he gave it a little extra squeeze.

"That's not fair," said Vivi.

"All's fair in love and war," said Skippy who, under the influence of outward conditions, momentarily forgot his role.

* * * * *

"My aunt's cat's pants," said Snorky enviously, when they had departed. "You're getting to be a rapid worker, old top, you certainly are!"

"Oh I've learned a thing or two," said Skippy pompously.

"Splash with your toes, old horse," said Snorky, shaking his head. "Look out, Vivi's an old stager. She collects them."

"What?"

"Scalps," said Snorky with a significant gesture.

"Just watch me."

"You don't say so."

"I've got her feeding out of my hand, gentle as a lamb," said Skippy, remembering with a pleasant tickling sensation the mystified fascination of her way of looking at him.

"Cheese it," said Snorky shaking his head.

"This is different."

"Whoa, old horse, whoa!"

"Snorky, old gal," said Skippy, who had now settled down into the predatory vision Miss Vivi had artfully evoked, "it's easy when you know the game."

"And what's the game?"

"Don't get tagged."

"Elucidate."

"Keep 'em running after you. It's the first one who runs away who wins every time."

"Oh, simple as that?"

"Sure, that's all there is to it."

"Let 'em love you, eh?"

"Oh well," said Skippy modestly, but as he sought his bed he stole a satisfied glance into the mirror.



CHAPTER XXXVI

SPLASHING WITH YOUR TOES

FOR the next six days Skippy was a very busy young man. He had a reputation to sustain. The reputation was quite unjustified but that did not alter matters. Miss Balou had given it to him and Miss Balou must not be disappointed. In the shifting comedy of life, Skippy was now cast for the part of the Demon Rusher. In those early ambling days before the automobile and the aeroplane had brought their escape valves for human energy, the steam pressure of youth sometimes found expression in what was known as the rush. As the name implies the object of the male participant was to carry all before him in cyclonic style, to dazzle and overwhelm the breathless and bewildered lady by the blinding rapidity of his showered attentions. By mutual consent nothing binding was ever implied in this form of acrobatic sentiment and the knell was sounded when either party paused for breath. When a rush began all bystanders withdrew as a matter of etiquette and waited for the dust to subside, much as, in the Simian days of the race, the lesser monkeys sat on a branch and hugged themselves when the big monk came courting.

Skippy borrowed a bicycle and departed from the home of his chum directly after breakfast, having likewise borrowed various brilliant bits of manly luxury which flashed from his ankles, his neck and his breast pocket. At exactly nine o'clock as though by accident Miss Vivi's trim figure daintily balanced on the smartest of "Safety" bicycles appeared from the Balou driveway and the following brilliant opening occurred.

"Why, Jack. What are you doing up so early?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Where are you going!"

"Same place you're going."

"Who asked you?"

"You're going to."

"How d'you know."

"Somebody's eyes have told me so," said Skippy in an unmusical treble.

Vivi pretended to be immensely offended, Skippy was immensely concerned that she should be offended. There was a long discussion whether he had really offended, whether he should be really forgiven and whether he really intended to renounce such airs of proprietorship in the future. By this time the two bicycles were close together with Skippy's hands on her handle-bars and the terms of peace were concluded by the young lady condescending to return to his appreciative gaze from underneath the lace brim of her hat whither she had taken refuge. They bicycled along the beach and Skippy expressed his wonder at the extent of her wardrobe. Vivi then remarked appreciatively upon his (or rather Snorky's) necktie. The conversation then expanded, easily and naturally along classic lines.

The theory was simplicity itself—who knows, perhaps it has remained the same to this day! For the twelve hours consecrated to each other's society each day, Skippy denied what Vivi affirmed unless it happened that Vivi doubted what Skippy stated as a fact. There were of course many ramifications, sometimes it was a question of you did and you didn't, sometimes it was and it wasn't, while any future speculation was confined to you will and you won't. As a matter of fact, nothing that was said really mattered and each knew it. Words were only so many verbal flourishes in the most fascinating of duels. Each played at the undying passion with open parades and each was only secretly concerned with bearing away the other's scalp.

They canoed together, walked together, picnicked together, making only short public appearances at the beach for the swimming hour and the evening hop. When they came to the club house they came late and danced together on the porch to escape the exigencies of society. If some unfeeling brute did arrive to claim Vivi, it was always understood that the next dance reverted to Skippy, who meanwhile (this was de rigeur) sat on the railing and looked dreadfully dejected. It was all very serious business, strenuous as training for the football team—but Skippy never relaxed. He had a reputation to sustain. Snorky gave him up for lost. He no longer sought to warn him, but each night simply as a matter of ceremony he passed his hand solicitously over the shock of stubby hair which adorned Skippy's elongated cranium just to assure himself that the scalp remained unbroken.



CHAPTER XXXVII

SKIPPY RETIRES WITH HIS SCALP

CAME the last day. End of the summer, of summer's warmth. End of languid siestas on drowsy beaches, end of balmy moonlight nights, moonlight sails, moonlight picnics; end of intimate whispered half laughing, half serious intimacies a deux. To-morrow separation and a man's life to take up again! To-morrow the chill of autumn and the melancholy of drifting leaves. The last partings to take, promises to be solemnly exchanged—heart burnings, bottom dropped out of everything, another milestone to be registered in the scurrying flight of Time!

Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Miss Vivi Balou separated themselves from the unromantic middle-aged crowd around the tennis courts and made their way up the beach to the sheltering swirls of convenient sand dunes. They walked in silence, oppressed by the greatness of their grief, from time to time their shoulders touched in dumb understanding.

"To-morrow!" said Skippy with a gulp in his throat.

"Don't!"

"To-morrow—gee!"

He carried a beach chair, four sofa cushions, two rugs, her work-bag, a box of chocolates and a romance they had dipped into.

"Don't!" repeated Miss Vivi, gazing out from under her pink parasol with stricken eyes at the unending sea.

"To-morrow afternoon at this time!"

"It's been wonderful—wonderful week."

He made a back of the chair, spread the rug and installed her solicitously. Then he camped down not too far away, not too near, pulled his cap over his eyes, locked his hands over his knees and stared out toward the horizon that, somehow, attracts at such moments.

A wind that was already cold played over the frosty waves and sent little scurries of sand twisting along the beach.

"Have a chocolate?"

"Thanks."

"Jelly or nut?"

"Nut. Thanks."

They munched in silence.

"That's the trouble with summer," said Skippy at last.

"Yes, isn't it?"

"It's rotten."

"Oh why must everything end?" said Vivi wildly.

"I can't realize that to-morrow—"

"You'll forget, men always forget."

Skippy shook his head.

"Yes. You'll write a letter or two and then heigh ho!"

"Look here, you don't mean that," said Skippy, turning on her.

Vivi's eyes dropped before his righteous indignation.

"No—no I don't mean that."

"Then don't talk that way—especially just now."

"Forgive me—Jack?"

"What?"

"You do forgive me?"

"Of course."

"You're going to do wonderful things at school," said Vivi, trying to be brave, "and I'm going to be so proud to think I know you."

"Do you think they'll let you come down to the Andover game?"

"I don't know about the game—but the Prom!"

"Gee, you'll be a knockout there!"

They ate more chocolates, while Skippy debated how to lead the conversation into the softer strain before bestowing on the object of his affections (for value exchanged, of course) the sacred emblem of the Philomathean Debating Society and bringing forth the Lawrenceville banner which was tightly folded up in his bulging hip pocket.

"I suppose you'll go back now to Dolly Travers," said Vivi, whose appetite for verbal expressions of sentiment was still far from being satisfied. "And forget all about—about this wonderful week."

"Women are fickler than men," said Skippy gloomily.

"Not—not always."

"Don't believe it."

"Out of sight out of mind."

"You know better than that," said Skippy, digging into his change pocket for the pin.

"How do I know?" said Vivi encouragingly.

"Because—" Suddenly Skippy remembered. His fingers relaxed on the pin. He brought forth his hand. "Say, you promised to read my hand you know."

"Did I?"

"Sure you did."

Miss Vivi sat up and carefully pillowed the squat calloused hand in her soft one. For a moment she studied it, turning it over and back again, running her finger meditatively over the mounds and depressions.

"Well?" said Skippy anxiously.

"Shall I tell all?"

"Everything."

"You have a very strong will—very obstinate and not easily influenced. Ambition will be your god and you will sacrifice—" Vivi hesitated.

"I say, go on."

"So far is true, isn't it?"

"Well, pretty true," said Skippy, who began to enjoy his portrait.

"You will sacrifice everything to your ambition—friends, family, the woman who loves you."

"Oh, I say!"

"It's here in your hand," said Vivi, shocked at the discovery. "Women will play very little part in your life. It's not that you haven't a lot to give, you have. See this bump, that's affection. It's very developed."

"That's where I threw my thumb out of joint," said Skippy doubtfully.

"But you've had a terrible experience in your life that has shaken your faith and you are afraid to trust again." Skippy looked the picture of gloom at this and thought bitterly on Mimi Lafontaine after hesitating once or twice on the backward journey. "This has made you cynical and cold, ready to impute the lowest motives. Women will love you—many women, but you will give your heart only once more—and that—that will be a tragedy, on account of your own lack of faith."

"Say, is all that there?" said Skippy, beginning to be alarmed.

"That and more," said Vivi, warming up. "You are very loyal, not at all conceited, brilliant intellectual qualities and you will make a success—" Here Vivi paused and turned his hand over, studying it carefully. "I see railroads and banking in your hand."

"Do you think so?" said Skippy unconvinced.

"There it is. You will make loads and loads of money."

"I say, do I get married?"

"That is not quite clear," said Vivi frowning. "This looks like it—but again this line—the cold calculating streak in your nature—"

At this moment, from down the beach, came a shrill whistle imitative of the whip-poor-will, insistent, querulous and repeated.

Vivi dropped his hand and glanced hastily at her watch.

"Good heavens, it's four o'clock!"

"All right, I'm on. Who's the little bird?" said Skippy, who had not heard himself described as the acme of suspicion for nothing.

"Jack!"

The whip-poor-will rose to shriller heights.

"It's Charlie Brownrigger," said Vivi, trying to appear embarrassed, "and he's come round to say good-bye."

"Oh, indeed."

"I had to let him say good-bye," said Vivi imploringly to the young sultan. "I've treated him abominably since you came. I can't be rude to a chap, can I? I'll be right back."

"How long's it going to take?" asked Skippy, drawing out his watch.

"Oh about twenty minutes," said Vivi.

"I'll wait exactly half an hour. Four-thirty to the minute. Not a second more."

"I do believe you're jealous, Jack Bedelle!" said Vivi expectantly.

"Jealousy has no part in my nature," said Skippy loftily. "Besides you can see it in my hand. Firmness, that's all!"

"Brute!" said Vivi with a killing glance.

She picked up the pink parasol and hastened down the beach. Skippy fished out the Philomathean Debating Society pin and slowly attached it to his vest. He switched to the vacated place with the back rest and began to whistle to himself. At the end of a seeming hour he glanced at his watch. Exactly seven minutes had elapsed.

"Half an hour was a mistake. Fifteen minutes is enough for a mut like Brownrigger. I should have been firmer. When a girl gets you to waiting for her—she has you going and coming. Firmer, I should have been much firmer!"

He slipped off his shoes to empty them of sand, and in doing so filled the gayly coloured work-bag that was Vivi's. His toilette finished, he took up the bag to clean it in turn. At the first touch as fate had decreed a book tumbled out and lay with opened pages before him. It looked most suspiciously like a diary. He averted his eyes and then his glance came slowly back to it.

"Here, that's not square," he said to himself angrily, torn by a mighty temptation. He leaned over and closed the book abruptly. The next moment he was staring at three gilded words that confronted him with the suddenness of Belshazzar's vision:

THE CHAP RECORD

A sudden brain storm swept over the emotional nature of Mr. Skippy Bedelle, of the sort which in modern legal etiquette is held to excuse all crimes. He knew what a chap record was. He had found one in his sister Clara's bureau and had been lavishly paid for his silence. He opened it violently and this is what he read:

HARRY FELTON. June 30-Sept. 6th. Good-looking in a soapy sort of way, but dull: Good dancer, agonizingly slow at a twosing. Takes what you give him and is grateful. Good for last minute calls.

JOE RANDOLPH. July 2d-August 6th. Awfully lavish and liberal. Spoiled and hard to keep in place. Useful later. Salt away for College Prom.

CHARLES BROWNRIGGER. Xmas to—. Terribly proper and easily shocked. Every girl an angel. Seeking a good influence. Good only for concerts and lectures.

CHARLIE DULER. Easter vacation. Professional flirt. Tried hard for him but no go. On to all the old tricks. Too much alike.

HECTOR CHISOLM. May 3 to May 6th. Three day rush fast and furious. Nice teeth and eyes, cold English style in daytime but wilts rapidly in the moonlight. Dreadfully exciting. Au revoir!

* * * * *

Having thus wandered through the carnage, Skippy braced himself and read:

* * * * *

JACK BEDELLE. August 20th—Dreadfully young and conceited, feed him on flattery—nice eyes but funny nose—poor conversationalist but works hard. Dreadful dancer. Pretends indifference but awfully soft in spots. Hooked him in twenty minutes—

* * * * *

Skippy laid the book down in his lap and glanced up the beach which showed no signs of an advancing parasol. Then he looked at his watch which indicated exactly the half hour. He sat a long moment thinking. Then he opened the book and at the paragraph devoted to him he added:

"Easy to hook is hard to hold."

But this did not satisfy him. He stood up and suddenly inspired sunk to his knees and hurriedly gathered together the sand into a mound capable of burying Miss Vivi's little body. Across it he laid the opened book. At its head he placed the box of chocolates as a headstone. Then below he wrote in the sand (symbol indeed of transient loves):

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF VIOLET BALOU SLAIN BY HER OWN HAND August 27th, 1896.

Then as a masterly afterthought he added savagely:

GONE AND NOW FORGOTTEN

Mr. Skippy Bedelle then wriggled away through the sand dunes just as Miss Vivi Balou with malice aforethought came up the beach accompanied by Mr. Charles Brownrigger.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE PHILOSOPHICAL ATTITUDE

IT happened on the day before school opened; at that moment when Skippy returning from his first sentimental summer had no other thought than to rest up from the fatigue of the vacation and devote his activities to the serious business of life. There were the freshman (a discouraging lot) to be properly educated, taught to punctuate their sentences with a humble "sir," "if you please" and "thank you;" there was a certain score to be settled with Al at the Jigger Shop and the basis of a new credit to be argued, there was the prize room on the third floor overlooking the campus to be re-decorated with the loot of the summer, and one crucial question to be decided forthwith:

"Shall we start training now or gorge ourselves for just one more day?"

"The Jiggers are peach, soft and creamy," said Snorky with a pensive look. "But we should set an example you know, old top, and all that sort of thing."

"Keerect, we must."

"I can see the crowd up at Conover's putting away the pancakes," said Snorky insidiously.

"Be firm," said Skippy, returning to his trunk.

"It isn't only the Jiggers," said Snorky, who sometimes practised virtue but without the slightest enthusiasm, "it's—it's those eclairs—never tasted anything like them, big, fat, luscious, oozing with cream—"

"Shut up," said Skippy indignantly. "Where's your house spirit?"

"Can't a fellow be human?" said Snorky in an aggrieved tone.

"All right, all right—but put your mind on other things," said Skippy nervously.

He disengaged an armful from the bottom of his trunk and spreading it on the window seat, contemplated the touch of many feminine hands with an expression that was as cynically blase as that of the traditional predatory bachelor. Whenever Skippy found a mood too elusive to be expressed in words, his lips instinctively resorted to boyhood's musical outlet. His eyes traveled appraisingly over sofa cushions, picture frames, knitted neckties and flags that represent those select institutions where young ladies are finished off. He began to whistle,

"I don't want to play in your yard, I don't like you any more . . ."

"My, you're a cold-hearted brute," said Snorky, in whom perhaps the spirit of envy was strong.

"I am," said Skippy unctuously, "and I am going to be brutier, take a tip from yours truly, Moony."

He disposed of half a dozen cushions, draped two flags and carefully placed three photographs amid the gallery on his bureau.

"Do you think that's honorable?" said Snorky resentfully.

"Scalps, that's all!" said Skippy with a grandiloquent wave of his hand.

"I get you. Heart whole and fancy free etcetera etceteray?"

"Every time."

"Since when?" said Snorky wickedly.

Skippy allowed this to pass, but having pensively contemplated the effect produced by the addition of Miss Dolly Travers, Miss Jennie Tupper and Miss Vivi Balou to the adoring galaxy of the past, he swung a leg over the table and assuming that newly acquired manner of a man of the world, which was specially galling to his chum, announced,

"Snorky, old horse, you play it wrong."

"I do, eh?"

"You do. There's nothing in that fussing game. Women, my boy, are our inferiors."

"Well, it took you some time to find it out."

"Keerect, but now I'm wise. Woman is like a harp in the desert, played upon by every passing wind."

"Where'd ye read that?"

"If you're going in for that sort of thing get promiscuous. The only cure for one woman is another."

"You ought to know."

"Are you corresponding with Margarita?" said Skippy suddenly.

"And if I am?"

Skippy shook his head sadly.

"Woman—" he began sententiously and just then fate knocked at the door.

"Come in if you're good-looking," said Snorky, glad of the interruption.

The door opened and discovered a short bulbous freshman, just a whit embarrassed as freshmen should be in the presence of royalty.

"Oh well, come in any way," said Skippy. "What's your name, freshman!"

"Potterman," said the rotund youngster squeezing in.

"Sir."

"Sir."

"What's the rest of it—the handle, the nickname."

"Are we telling our real names?" said the new arrival, cocking his derby.

"Green, get out the bamboo cane," said Skippy solemnly.

"Oh well, they call me Hippo—sir," said Potterman hastily.

"Ah yes, Hippo Potterman. Of course. That's good, but we'll try to do better by you. Where did they find you?"

"Philamedelphia, sir."

"What's that you've got there?" said Snorky just about to fall upon him bodily.

"Please, sir, it's a letter from Mrs. Bedelle, your aunt."

"Oh, I see," said Skippy with a feeling of disappointment. "You know my aunt? Well, freshman, you may give it to me. I permit you. Advance. That's it. Curtsey. A little lower. Better."

DEAR JACK,

My very dear friend Susan Potterman is sending her son Cornelius—

Skippy frowned and looked up incredulously.

"Is your name really Cornelius?"

Potterman flushed like the rose and said with a gulp:

"Yes, sir, it is."

"Too bad, too bad."

son Cornelius to Lawrenceville. Please do everything you can to make him at home and see that he meets the best boys. His mother and sister will go on with him and I want you particularly to be very nice to them.

Affectionately, AUNT CARRIE.

Skippy having read this twice, looked in the envelope to make sure that a five dollar bill was not enclosed, as all aunts should remember to do, and transferred his gaze to the fidgeting Hippo.

"H'm, first time at boarding school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Governesses before?"

Hippo, who had been recovering from his first feeling of awe, roared loudly at this.

Skippy looked indignantly at this breach of etiquette and reached thoughtfully for a tennis racket.

"Please, sir," said Hippo hastily, "High school."

Skippy considered him thoughtfully and something told him that in the right-hand lower vest pocket there was undoubtedly a certain amount of round hard silver bodies and moreover that this condition was not simply episodic but chronic.

"That coot may be fresh but he is going to do a lot of heavy spending," he said to himself with conviction.

How he knew is immaterial. There is an instinct that guides—some have it, some haven't it. You can't explain it. Doc Macnooder for instance could diagnose a pocket-book as keenly as a surgeon. It's a gift, that's all. Skippy possessed this gift.

"Mother just brought you in?"

Hippo acknowledged this with a look of the greatest distress.

"Sister too?"

"Damn it, yes!"

Skippy looked at Snorky and shook his head.

"Don't you know that profanity is a wicked, wicked habit, Hippo?"

Hippo's mouth started to swallow his ears, then returned to rest at signs of a hostile atmosphere. He swung from foot to foot, looked sheepish, looked terrified and finally blurted out:

"I beg pardon, sir."

"It is a wicked habit, Hippo, but we are here to help you. It is very lucky for you that you have come to the right school, where you will meet boys of fine manly standards. Kneel down, Hippo."

"What, sir?"

"Go over to the bed and kneel down," said Skippy in a voice of great sadness. "Don't hesitate, Hippo. That's better. Now, Hippo, I want you to reflect upon what a wicked, wicked thing profanity is and I want you to ask God to forgive you and help you. Silently, Hippo."

Hippo, who was green and fresh but not at all green and gullible, went through the prescribed program with the utmost gravity.

"Do you feel better now, Hippo?" said Snorky solemnly.

"Yes, sir, but I'd like a little more time, sir."

"Stand up," said Skippy frowning.

Hippo, unchastened, bounded to his feet and saluted.

"And, Hippo, I'm afraid," said Skippy relentlessly, "that you don't appreciate what a mother's love means. Think how your mother has watched over you all these years, think how she has scrubbed behind your ears, think of the hundreds and hundreds of toothbrushes—"

But at this, as Snorky gulped and barely converted a laugh into a sneeze with a hurried dive into the closet, Skippy abandoning his pedagogical air said in a more natural tone:

"Well, Hippo, I shall want to talk with you very seriously on this some other time. Your manners are shocking and your morals worse, but I am here. Don't worry. Meanwhile, ahem, you can bring your family in to tea."

"Thank you, kind sir."

"Hippo, you are fresh."

"But you are kind, aren't you, sir?" said Hippo with assumed innocence.

"Get your hat and wait downstairs," said Skippy deciding to abandon the lighter tone.

"Yes, sir."

"Hippo?"

"What, sir?"

"Don't forget."

"What, sir?"

"The curtsey, you know."

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later Skippy and Snorky with Hippo in tow started across the campus to show their protege the historic spots, beginning with Laloo's where the merry hot dogs whistled to one another in steaming cans, by way of Bill Appleby's where ginger-pop and root-beer waited, to the Jigger Shop where the Jigger cooled and Conover's where the pancake sizzled.

Opposite the Jigger Shop the celebrated Doc Macnooder, resplendent in a varsity sweater, was surveying the hungry Jigger-fed crowd and debating whether to go right up and pay for his sustenance or wait a little longer and see what might turn up.

"Well, Skippy, been inventing anything new?" said Macnooder pleasantly after the introductions.

"I say, Doc, I want to put it up to you," said Skippy hastily, for he feared any reference to bathtubs or mosquitoes might detract from the respect which was essential in Hippo. "I'm out for the scrub, you know, and what I wanted to ask you was do you think training ought to start now or wait until school opens."

Macnooder's mind scorned subtleties. It moved by the shortest cuts to the practical issue.

"Has he got the price?" he said looking at Hippo.

"He has."

"Let's eat."

Macnooder looked appraisingly at Hippo, whom Nature had destined to play at center rush, to be mauled and cuffed and suffocated under scores of scuffing, struggling bodies. A flicker of sympathy should have stirred, but it didn't.

"You'll need quite a lot of stuff," he said pensively.

"Nothing doing, Doc," said Skippy, winking hard at his protege. "Hippo's fitted out."

"How about fountain-pens or crockery sets, or patent nail clippers?"

"I dote on fountain-pens," began Hippo.

"Hippo's under my protection," said Skippy militantly. "We're sort of related."

"Oh well, let's eat then," said Macnooder with a reluctant look.

"Don't take anything from that fellow even if he gives it to you," said Skippy in a whisper to Hippo. "Elucidations later."

Al had two attitudes of welcome, according to the record of the books, one in which the hand advanced impulsively and a smile broke from under the shaggy yellow bang and another where the hand remained in a stationary receptive cup, or sometimes caressed the limp ends of the mustache in a way most discouraging and disheartening to the delinquent debtor. When Doc Macnooder arrived, however, he paid him the further honor to carefully close the glass cases where eclair and fruit cake were waiting the call to service, and braced himself against the counter.

"Hello, Al," said Skippy affably, "here we are again. Set 'em up four times."

"I see you and I see that there Doc Macnooder," said Al in an unconvinced sort of way.

"Set 'em up," said Macnooder in an encouraging tone.

"Who's settin' 'em up?" said Al, resorting to his toothpick.

Macnooder looked at Skippy, Skippy looked at Snorky, then all three looked at Hippo.

"The pleasure is mine," said Hippo and with a purse-proud gesture he flicked on the counter a twenty dollar bill.

Al was not easily shocked but for once his perfect manner left him. He glanced at Hippo and then enviously at Macnooder.

"I didn't know they picked them as early as that," he said enigmatically. "Doc, you'll be buying this place in a week."

"I could buy it now," said Macnooder frowning, "and Al, step to the back and have a little business talk with me."

Al, having received payment and displayed the Jiggers, left for the back of the store to that secluded nook which had heard a hundred explanations and supplications from the improvident and hungry. Skippy, who despite the new assurance of his public manner, was willing to learn at the feet of a master, Jigger in hand, moved into a position of eavesdropping.

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, coming to the point.

"Exactly what my little proposition comes to," said Macnooder affably. "Tear it up, Al, you'll do it sooner or later so why not now?"

"What's the flim-flam?" said Al, who recognized in Macnooder qualities of a superior intelligence.

"I don't like the word," said Macnooder in a pained tone. "I've got an idea and you're going to buy it. Al, the Jigger Shop has had a cinch, a monopoly, a trust. You fixed prices and you've controlled the output. Now answer me, yes or no. Have you ever paid out one cent in commissions?"

"Get to the point."

"I will. I have an idea, I might say a brilliant idea and when I say I like the idea better than any idea I can remember—you know me—I'm modest, but Al, it's a wonder. You'll like it. No, change that line, you may not like it but you'll respect it. Al, I'm going to let you in, give you the first chance. Conover would double the commission. Appleby would go wild over it. But, Al, I'm giving you the first chance."

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, making a motion to close his ears.

"Not a cent less," said Macnooder firmly, who according to his manner, having produced the proper hypnotic effect, now came to the point. "Sit down, Al, if you won't sit down—brace yourself. The idea's coming now and the idea's loaded with dynamite. Suppose, I say suppose, it was in my power to boycott you."

"God Almighty couldn't do that," said Al.

"Not as you see it—you're right there, Al, shrewd and clever! Al, there are ten freshmen in the Dickinson. Think hard now, the idea's growing. Ten freshmen. Suppose,—I only say suppose now that as a disciplinary measure we should decide that no freshman could enter the Jigger Shop say—well let's be moderate—for the space of three months. We might let them go to Conover's or Laloo's and then again—"

"Macnooder," said Al explosively, "when they lead you to the gallows I'll be sitting right up front if it cost every cent I have."

"Al, you grieve me."

"It's blackmail! It's extortion and blame it I believe you'd do it."

"No, Al, it's not blackmail, it's not extortion. If I came to you and said out and out, flat, tear up that account of mine or I'll boycott you—that, Al, that would be all you say."

"My Gawd, Doc, why do you waste your time in this little place anyhow?"

"You see, Al, it's this way," said Macnooder, smiling at the compliment, "I'm coming to you as Macnooder your attorney, that's one person, to use his influence with Macnooder the financier, that's another person—I'm a lobbyist, a paid lobbyist."

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al in a fainter voice.

"Al, I'm surprised and shocked. I thought your mind leaped at things. You don't see it yet. You're thinking in terms of ten freshmen—"

"Nineteen doll . . ."

"But suppose the Dickinson lays down the law, suppose the Kennedy follows suit. You saw what that fellow flashed, a twenty dollar yellowback, a word to Skippy and the Kennedy would follow. Skippy, you understand, would have to be protected, you get that. Well, what would happen? Every house in the school would follow suit. What does that mean? Figure it out. It means one hundred freshmen multiplied by ninety days multiplied by at least two Jiggers a fresh—per day—you know how freshmen eat—"

But here, Skippy, terrified, tiptoed away. Macnooder aroused in him the lust for gold and he wished to retain a few simple ideals. He signaled Snorky and Hippo and escaped up the road to the home of the pancake.

"Doc Macnooder is a wonder but he's not, well he's not quite the sort of chap you want to associate with, Hippo. Understand?"

"I'm young but I'm not so green as all that," said Hippo winking wisely.

"In fact, Doc's a sponge and you made an awful break."

"I did, what's that, sir?"

"You shouldn't have shown him that twenty dollar bill. He'll never let up so long as he remembers that."

"Skippy's right, Hippo," said Snorky.

"What'll I do?"

"Leave it to us. We'll think out some way."

After a good deal of thinking, they returned from a heavy performance at Conover's, laden with a large creamcake, a half dozen eclairs, a box of Huyler's and two pounds of Turkish paste, after placing an order for tinned meats, cheese, saltines and root-beer.

"I say, this sort of removes the lurking danger, doesn't it?" said Hippo, searching in his pocket for the last half-dollar.

"We'll store the grub in our rooms," said Snorky solemnly, "and then there won't be any danger at all."

"Oh, thank you, kind sir," said the irrepressible Hippo, and only the soothing presence of the layer cake against his breast kept Snorky from a mood of wrath.

"If you've got to mother that little squirt," said Snorky wrathfully, once they had returned to their room, "you'll have your hands full, that's all I wish to remark. A fresher, nervier little nuisance—"

"Nuisance is going to get a lot of mothering," said Skippy with a far-off look in his eyes. "But remember, old dear, that's why we're here. That's why the faculty invites us to Lawrenceville."

"Well," said Snorky as he stowed away the purchases and arranged the eclairs on the tea-table, "if we can keep him away from Doc Macnooder, there's going to be a few compensations."

"Nuisance will neither be affectionate nor familiar by this time to-morrow," said Skippy grinding his teeth.

"Cheese it! Hide the towels—here they come!"

A knock and then the voice of Hippo in flippant familiarity:

"All right, Skippy, we're good looking. Open up."

Skippy looked at Snorky and swallowed hard while his right arm worked convulsively.

"Come in," he said with an effort.

The door opened and Miss Potterman triumphantly entered his life. Mrs. Potterman was there and Hippo with his impertinent smirk but neither Skippy nor Snorky saw anything else but that wonderful vision. Something unbelievable had suddenly stepped out of their favorite Gibson picture and was advancing in a halo. Violets and daffodils began to sprout from the carpet and birds sang in the window frames. It was instantaneous and it was terrific.



CHAPTER XXXIX

LOVE PLUS HIPPO

JUST as there are professional conversationalists and professional sponges, Miss Potterman was a professional beauty. There was nothing accidental or temporary about her. She was complete, perfect, and she knew her loveliness. After five years' triumphant progress in society she was accustomed to the petrifying effect of her sudden presence on a beauty-worshipping sex. She did not walk as other mortals walk, but floated in fragrantly and Skippy stood staring rock-still, as though Hippo had flashed the head of Medusa. None of which by the way was lost on the keenly observant Hippo.

"I beg pardon, I'm Skippy," he said shaking himself.

"Mr. Bedelle, isn't it?" said Miss Potterman in the tones that angels are supposed to employ.

Skippy saw no one else. In another moment he was seated on the window-seat entranced, dazed and blissfully content with his fate, docile as the rabbit in the presence of the boa constrictor.

"I'm so glad Corny is in your house," said Miss Potterman with a smile in the irresistible eyes. "You will watch over him, won't you, Mr. Bedelle?"

"Will I? You bet I will!"

"You see he's my only brother and we didn't want him to go to boarding school—not just yet. That is, mother and I. Dad insisted on it. I don't think he's always, well—quite appreciated Cornelius."

"I understand," said Skippy, averting his look. Even in the intoxication of her presence he could appreciate Dad.

"You see, Corny's different from other boys, Mr. Bedelle. He's more like a grown-up person. He has a wonderful mind and such an unusual personality. I don't want him to lose it all and be just like every other boy. And some boys, I'm afraid, won't understand him just at first. You will look after him, protect him, won't you?"

"I'd promise you anything," said Skippy recklessly, which is the privilege of sixteen in the presence of twenty-five.

Miss Potterman smiled without surprise and laid her hand gently a moment on his arm in the deadliest of feminine gestures.

"Corny's told me how kind you have been already."

Skippy looked incredulous.

"Indeed he has. Really he's quite fond of you already."

"I say, Sis," said Nuisance at this moment, "hasn't Skippy got a whang-dinger of a room?"

And he approached with the layer cake and the eclairs.

"What a wonderful spread," said Miss Potterman, "but really you have been too extravagant!"

Something in Skippy's sudden look decided Hippo to keep the secret, but he revenged himself on the cake in a way that made his sister exclaim:

"Corny, where are your manners?"

"'S all right. I'll buy another," said Hippo, who then winked brazenly at Skippy.

"I'll murder him, I will," said Skippy wrathfully to himself. "I'd strip the hide off him, if it—if it weren't for—" Then he raised his eyes and beheld the reason why, smiling at him with perfect faith.

"I'm afraid we've spoiled Corny just a little," she said hesitating.

"Oh, that's all right."

"Is—is there much of that dreadful hazing?"

"Well, sometimes," said Skippy, who always placed the proper value on his services.

"Oh dear, I've heard such dreadful things have happened," said Miss Potterman, thoroughly alarmed.

"That's only when accidents happen."

"Accidents!"

"Don't worry, Miss Potterman," said Skippy with the manner of a Grand Duke. "Fellows do get rough sometimes, but I'll look after him."

Miss Potterman again laid her hand on his arm.

"Thank you."

She stayed but half an hour. The door closed. The birds fled from the windows and the daffodils retired under the carpet.

"Whew!" said Snorky explosively.

Skippy fell back on a chair and fanned himself.

"What's the use?" he said disconsolately.

"Women are our inferiors," said Snorky wickedly.

"What eyes!"

"Woman is like a harp—"

"Woman!" said Skippy rousing himself indignantly. "You don't call that a woman! That's Maude Adams and Lorna Doone and—and the Gibson Girl rolled into one!"

"Don't blame you," said Snorky heavily. "It ain't right to let anything as wonderful as that roam around loose. Skippy, it's all wrong."

"You're right there."

"Well," said Snorky reflectively, "she turned up in time. We'd have had Nuisance ready for the undertaker by the morning."

"My hands are tied," said Skippy glumly. "I've promised."

"Me too, but how are we going to stick it out?"

"Well, we'll have to treat Nuisance with moral influences," said Skippy thoughtfully. "It will be longer, longer and harder."

They dined with Miss Potterman at the Inn and that and a walk about the campus under the stars completed the devastation. Before it was over Skippy actually heard himself called "Jack," had shaken hands on an eternal friendship, promised to write from time to time of Hippo's progress and needs, agreed to defend him from bodily injury and promised to accompany him home for the short Thanksgiving recess. The final touch came when Miss Potterman sought to press upon him a large bill in case Hippo should be perishing of thirst or hunger.

Skippy put it away. It hurt to do so, it choked him, but he did it.

"Not from you—I couldn't," he said huskily. "I—well, I just couldn't."

That night as he stood at his bureau and looked into the eyes of the past, at Mimi and Dolly and Jennie and Vivi the hunter of scalps, he spoke.

"Snorky?"

"What is it, old boy?"

"Ever go fishing?"

"You betcha."

"Do you know the feeling after you've been dabbling with six-inch and five-inch and four-inch trout all day,—and something about three feet long weighing ten or twelve pounds grabs your hook? Do you get me?"

"Sure, I get you," said Snorky gazing heavily out at the stars, "but oh gee, Skippy, why does she have to be Nuisance's sister?"

* * * * *

Snorky's worst forebodings were realized. Nuisance earned his title a hundredfold within the week. Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan had been fresh, was fresh and would freshen more, but Dennis was amusing and added to the gayety of nations. Nuisance was what his name implied, simply intolerable. You stumbled over him and you bumped into him. When state secrets were being discussed in whispers, Nuisance was always within earshot. He was the extra, the intruder, the tail to the kite. He did not actively offend against the traditions which govern freshmen in the incubator period. He was too clever for that. He had submitted to the mild hazing with a cheerfulness which robbed it of all its sting. He had climbed water towers and sung appropriate hymns. He had sat in washbasins and gravely pulled imaginary miles against the toothpicks furnished him as oars. He had submitted to the pi's as they came with a full recognition that the second and third men in the mounting heap were extremely more uncomfortable than himself with a mattress for a vis-a-vis. He was not insubordinate—he was just a nuisance.

But if he kept skilfully within the letter of the law so far as the rest of the house was concerned he was irrepressible once in the company of Skippy. Nothing that Skippy could do could chill his affection or bring him to a proper realization of the deference which should mark the manner of a freshman towards one of the lords of the earth.

"Nuisance is like a wet muddy Newfoundland pup that wants to live in your lap," said Snorky at the end of the second week.

"Some day," said Skippy shaking his head, "my worse nature is going to rise up and get the better of me."

"I hope I see it!" said Snorky enthusiastically.

"Of course I'll have to hold in until after Thanksgiving," said Skippy disconsolately.

"What? Oh, naturally."



CHAPTER XL

REALITY MINUS HIPPO

THANKSGIVING over, Snorky confidently waited the explosion.

"Skippy's going to the bad," he said to Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan. "He's nervous, he's fidgety, he talks in his sleep. There's no living with him."

"Some day it'll come," said Dennis cheerfully. "Some day there'll be a bang-up, two by two procession, slow music, flowers omitted; and right on a nice green shutter will be stretched our Sister's darling boy."

"Well, I'm getting tired of waiting."

"Keep hoping," said Dennis wisely. "Human nature is human nature. Say, look at that!"

Across the campus came Skippy, fists sunk in his pockets, hat-brim down, stalking rapidly, and at his heels the irrepressible Nuisance.

"It's shocking," said Snorky, "poor old Skippy!"

"That's what love means," said Finnegan contemptuously. "Do you know what he reminds me of? A poor lonely cur going down the road with a tin can tied to his tail."

"Hello, Skippy," said Snorky sadly.

Skippy looked at them and grunted.

At this moment Nuisance caught him by the arm.

"Say, old chap, what are you going to do now?"

"Going to bed, damn it!" said Skippy and bolted within.

* * * * *

How could Snorky and Dennis that unworldly fledgling know what Skippy suffered? The forty-eight hours of the Thanksgiving vacation had been like a narcotic dream. He had been under the same roof with her, sat by her side in the darkened theatre and thrilled at the low sobby music that sent his imagination helter-skelter into dangerous pastures; received her confidences, gravely discussed with her the character and eligibility of older men, confided in turn his life's project to launch mosquito-proof socks on a world scale; received the full force of her lovely radiant gentlest of smiles; danced with her alone a whole hour in the Potterman ballroom, suffocated with happiness; and for all of which had promised what? To wear Nuisance about his neck like a millstone, to protect, cherish and guide him through the perils and temptations of boarding-school as though—as though he were his own brother. And Nuisance knew! That was the worst of it,—Nuisance knew the thin tyrant skein by which he held him irrevocably linked! Christmas was yet to come and for what Christmas might hold Skippy possessed his soul in patience.

Then the blow fell. A week later as Snorky Green was returning from the village he perceived Dennis de Brian de Boru in a state of excitement waving a newspaper at him from the porch.

"There must be another birth in the faculty," thought Snorky, puzzled to ascribe an adequate reason. Such events, be it mentioned, were usually attended by cuts and in the higher spheres with even a half holiday.

Finnegan rushed forward, dove at his knees and spilled him on the ground joyously.

"Damn you, you mad Irishman," said Snorky picking himself up and disentangling himself from the newspaper. "What's hit you anyway?"

"It's come, hooray!"

"What's come?"

"Skippy's free!"

Snorky, further mystified, seized Finnegan and having sufficiently shaken him demanded an explanation.

"Eighth page, first column, ouch!" said Finnegan.

Snorky opened it and read:

MISS POTTERMAN TO MARRY HAROLD B. DRINKWATER

At this moment the door opened and Skippy came heavily out.

"Have you seen it?" said Dennis breathlessly.

"Seen what?"

"The paper!"

"What's in the paper?"

Dennis glanced at Snorky and solemnly handed over the fatal announcement. All levity had disappeared. A man's sorrow after all must be sacred.

Skippy read and suddenly put down the paper. Only two things came to his mind—wedding immediate and she had not even written him.

At this most auspicious moment, Nuisance came gamboling around the house.

"Hi, Skippy, old sport, what ye doin'?"

Dennis de Brian de Boru looked at Snorky and then simultaneously each sat down and retired into an expectant audience.

Nuisance frolicked enthusiastically up for his victim and then stopped. He had just caught Skippy's expression. He stopped and suddenly looked at the ground. He knew!

Slowly, carefully, warily with his eyes on Skippy he began a strategic withdrawal. Skippy moved stealthily forward, picking up his steps as a rat terrier does. Nuisance slunk away, calculating the distance to the corner of the house. Skippy increased the pace, drawing ominously nearer.

Then Finnegan's shrill voice cried:

"Sic him, Skippy!"

The next moment, Nuisance, panic-stricken, was scuttling for his life, with Skippy roaring at his heels.

And just back of the lonely stretches of the Dickinson, Skippy fell upon him.

* * * * *

That night Skippy, wise by disillusionment, confided his sorrows to a diary which began as follows:

"What I don't know about women, ain't worth knowing. Resolved; if any loving is going to be done, they can do the loving."

But that of course is still another story. . . .

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 63, "bandanna" changed to "bandana" to match remainder of text (green bandana handkerchief)

Page 89, "thoughfully" changed to "thoughtfully" (said Snorky thoughtfully)

Page 110, "revery" changed to "reverie" (in a dark reverie)

Page 123, "vis-a-vis" changed to "vis-a-vis" (vis-a-vis with a youngster)

Page 124, "subleties" changed to "subtleties" (These subtleties naturally)

Page 162, "longue" changed to "lounge" (chaise-lounge of her)

Page 214, "customs" changed to "custom" (custom-made dress suit)

Page 245, "are't" changed to "aren't" (commandments, aren't they)

Page 251, "celler" changed to "cellar" (the salt cellar)

Page 293, "paticularly" changed to "particularly" (particularly to be very)

Page 297"subleties" changed to "subtleties" (mind scorned subtleties)

THE END