TEN minutes later Snorky Green was standing in a daze, one hand on an open Bible,—taken for the occasion from the room of the Pink Rabbit,—and gazing into the flushed countenance of his roommate, who was saying:
"Snorky, are you a Christian?"
"Say, what do you—"
"No matter—you believe in God!"
"Sure I do."
"Then swear!"
"Swear what?"
"Swear never to reveal to man, woman or child what I am about to disclose to you."
"I swear!"
"As I am a Christian and believe in God."
"As I am a Christian and believe in God."
"And if I do may God strike with his afflictions those I love best—"
"Oh, I say—"
"Say it."
Snorky reluctantly subscribed to this terrible oath and five minutes later the Secret was his.
"Great Jehosophat!"
"Do you see it?"
"Do I see it?" Snorky tore from his throat the collar that was stifling him. "My aunt'scat's pants!" he said solemnly. "Skippy, we'll be billionaires!"
"We'll buy a yacht and live on Fifth Avenue," said Skippy, who for sentimental reasons suppressed any reference to Lillian Russell.
"Say this is so big we've got to take every precaution," said Green, whose imagination was on more practical lines. "No one must even suspect until we've got this drawn up and patented."
"That's what worries me."
Snorky Green cautiously opened the door and investigated the hall, then returning drew up his chair and said in a confidential whisper:
"Skippy, when this goes through every bathtub in the country will go in the scrap heap. Think of that!"
"I have thought of that."
"It'll do what the pneumatic tube did to the bicycle."
"What the trolley did to the horse-car!"
"It's revolutionary."
"It is."
"Enormous!"
"Stupendous!"
They shook hands and Skippy, bursting with happiness, said impulsively:
"Old friend, whatever I make—you're down for half."
"No, no. Two-thirds to you—one-third tome," said Snorky, as Cæsar putting from him the proffered crown.
"I won't have it—share and share alike," said Skippy in a rush of emotion.
"But, Skippy, do you realize what even one-third will mean!" said Snorky, in a voice trembling with the vision of the future. He went nervously to the desk and returned with pad and pencil. "Write down these figures."
"Ought we to?"
"We'll destroy it afterward. Put down ninety-two million."
"What's that?"
"The population of the United States."
"I see—ninety-two it is."
"Divide that by—by—well let's be conservative."
"It's better."
"Let's say there's one bathtub to every fifty-five inhabitants."
"I think that's too conservative."
"We mustn't let our imagination run away with us," said Snorky. "One in fifty and then we're safe."
"Well, let's say two million bathtubs," said Skippy, who disliked figures, and felt the first promptings of avarice.
"So be it. Two million bathtubs and on every tub our royalty!"
"What'll we ask?"
"What do you suppose a bathtub averages!"
"Say fifty dollars, at ten per cent,—that would be five dollars coming to us."
"Five dollars, but Skippy, isn't that exorbitant?"
"You forget we'll be in a position to dictate."
"Holy Maria!"
Under 2,000,000 he wrote the figure five and slowly noted the colossal result.
"Do you realize what that means?"
"It means ten million dollars!"
"No, it means more than that—it means that if the Bathtub Combine came to us to-day and offered us a million dollars—it would be suicide to accept it!"
Skippy's eyes dilated with excitement. Slowly he tore the sheet of paper in two.
"Burn it—take no chances," said Snorky, who proceeded to light a match.
"And that's only the United States," said Skippy in a whisper.
"There's Canada and the British Empire!"
"But Englishmen carry rubber tubs with them."
"They can be educated."
"The French don't bathe," said Skippy mournfully.
"That'll come."
"Holy cats, Rockefeller won't be in it!" said Skippy, who was suffocating. "Snorky, what I said goes! Money isn't everything. No—sentiment'sbigger. Fifty-fifty, I said, and fifty-fifty it stands!"
"Then I'll put money into it," said Snorky, offering his hand. "I'll go to my father. But not now—not a word until we get the patent. If any one gets the idea we're lost!"
Skippy jumped at the sound of Butsy White's elephantine descent of the stairs.
"And Skippy," said Snorky Green, with a sudden realization of a man's frailties, "whatever you do—never tell a woman. You understand?"
Skippy, whose relations with the opposite sex were of the cat-and-dog variety, solemnly raised his hand.
"I swear."
"Now to be practical. I say, Skippy, we do have to invent the regulator, you know."
WHEN, after a dream-ridden night, Skippy started across the campus to morning chapel, the urchin's wabble had gone from his legs forever. He moved with firm and measured tread, shoulders thrown back and head erect, every inch a man, and his glance was set into the future with proud recognition of his place in the complex scheme of things. The imagination, which returns after the sense of humor, was still drowsy with the painful waking effort in chapel, but as he proceeded to Memorial Hall, the glittering future approached a little nearer. Some day he, John C. Bedelle, would return to the old school a patron and a benefactor!
"They ought to have a gymnasium," he thought, appraising the campus in a burst of generosity. "I'll give it to them. I'll give them a gym that'll beat anything hollow. I'll give them the finest architect in the country. I will! And when it's all built and ready to dedicate—" But all at once as he started to visualize himself before the applauding crowd Snorky Green jogged his elbow:
"Skippy—Gee, I've got it!"
"What?"
"Sh—sh! You know—the invention! Meet me in the room after first recitation. Mum's the word!"
A little unworthy feeling of jealousy came to Skippy at this announcement; almost a feeling of having been defrauded. Yet after all he had only himself to blame. The temptation of the future had beguiled him from the present necessity. He slid into his seat, conveniently protected, by the broad back of Tubby Banks, from the searching gaze of Lucius Cassius Hopkins, better known as the Roman, who presently would number him among the flunked. Then when the attack centered among the R's and S's, across the room, he drew forth a pencil and attacked the problem of a practical foot regulator. But immediately the deplorable deficiency of his education struck him. What preparation had he for his life's vocation? Of mathematics he knew absolutely nothing! The priceless years had been squandered on mere Latin, English prose, French verbs and the vexing grammars.
"I must have a scientific education," he said, drawing rough outlines on the margin of Cæsar's Gallic Wars. "How in the deuce am I to begin? A foot's sort of different. Shall I make it a button to press on or a sort of slipper to push up and down?"
There was a cut of the famous bridge acrossthe Rhine, but a hurried examination brought him no comfort. He looked over at Snorky across the aisles and Snorky winked back at him in the triumph of achievement. Still if Snorky was to share in the fabulous returns it was only right that Snorky should contribute to the practical details! The truth is that Skippy in calmer mood had already begun to regret the impulse of the day before. Five million dollars after all was a good deal to give away in a gesture, even to the chum of chums!
"What the deuce got into me?" he thought gloomily. Until that moment the sinister corruption of money had been foreign to his nature, but all at once a change came to his outlook. "Gee, even a third would have been awhaleof a sum!"
He rose and flunked horribly in an attempt to classify an ablative absolute and answered "unprepared" when the Roman, maliciously pressing his advantage, insisted on his translating. Then with sulky dignity he strode to the blackboards with the B's and C's and the D's and flunked once more on the conjugation of an irregular verb. What time was this for trivial annoyances when his whole soul was rent with the thought of the millions which he had squandered for a moment's sentimental impulse! He was not ashamed of that impulse, no—but, all the same, Snorky, if he had hadfiner feelings, would never have abused his generosity!
"What's the matter?" said the chum of chums, when, recitations over, they had gained the secrecy of their bedroom. "You look positively bilious."
"I didn't sleep much," said Skippy, eyeing him with intuitive disfavor.
"Well, for Heaven's sake brace up; you look as though you'd swallowed a porcupine!"
"All very well for you to cheer up," Skippy thought to himself. It hurt, there was no turning from it. It did hurt. What a blunder he had made!
"I could have hired him on a salary," he thought gloomily. But of course now there could be no backing out.
"Well, now what haveyouworked out?" said Snorky triumphantly.
"I? My mind has been concentrating on the business organization."
"Gaze on this!" Snorky proudly brought forth a diagram which to Skippy's bewildered gaze looked like the cross section of a switch yard. "Do you get it?"
"What's this?"
"That? Why that's the bathtub, you chump."
"It doesn't look like any bathtub."
"You're in it, looking down—see, this is the line of the water. Here's the hot and cold—"
"But this and that—"
"That's your legs, of course. You're in the tub looking south. Your legs stick out, don't they, and these are the foot regulators—"
"They look like feet."
"They are feet—that is, your feet stick in 'em."
"But how does it work?"
Snorky produced another scrawl.
"This is a cross section, you see. Works both ways. This you work with your hands. Then you turn it on here with this catch, and your foot regulators come into play—see?"
"It's awfully complicated."
"Ought to be."
"Why?"
"'Cause if you just had an attachment to put on the spigots, you mightn't get more than a dollar a tub."
"He's thinking of the money," thought Skippy, darkly.
"You don't seem enthusiastic."
"No-o—."
"I say, Skippy, you aren't natural," said Snorky in alarm. "You don't look at me as you used to. What is it? Out with it now."
"Well," said Skippy slowly, "I said fifty-fifty and I stick to it; fifty-fifty, because I am a man of my word, but I do think there oughtto be some limit. . ."
Ten minutes later, when Snorky's infectious laugh had restored his sense of humor, Bedelle, Incorporated took up the transaction of business again,—the discussion of the profits having by mutual consent been adjourned to a later session.
"Skippy, old top, I'm thinking we've got to get expert advice," said Snorky after a morning of fruitless discussion.
"You mean—"
"I mean Doc Macnooder or the Tennessee Shad."
"I'm afraid so, too. This is bigger than us."
"It's a hard choice."
"It is—and we've got to be protected."
"You bet we've got to be protected."
"Well, if we must choose between Macnooder and the Shad, which would you rather trust?"
"Trust no one," said Snorky, finding it impossible to establish this distinction. "And say, Skippy,—oaths on the Bible are all right, but if we're going to let Macnooder in on this he's got to sign a paper."
"You betcha!" said Skippy, with whom a little of Bill Appleby's distrust remained. "A paper's the thing!"
That afternoon, after due ceremony, the door was closed and locked and Doc Macnooder inducted into an easy chair. Skippy producing the Bible said firmly:
"Doc, you've got to take the oath; never to reveal to man, woman—"
"But I'm a Unitarian," said Macnooder, examining the St. James version.
The point was debated and passed over. Snorky then produced a formidable document tied in green ribbons with large wax seals, stamped with a cameo stick-pin.
"You'll have to sign this, too."
"Sign what?"
Snorky read rapidly:
"I, Doc Macnooder, in my third form year, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, hereby testify that on this date, the 12th day of April, 1896, the information written on the back of the present sheet of paper was communicated to me by John C. Bedelle, the rightful and lawful inventor, and the document does hereby establish all his rights. Signed—"
"Yes, but what's on the other side?" said Macnooder, with rising curiosity.
"That can only be communicated to you after your signature."
Macnooder was wary, but Macnooder was inquisitive. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and considered.
"Is Dink Stover in this, or the Tennessee Shad?" he asked cautiously.
"Not a soul besides us two has the slightest suspicion."
"All right then—I'll sign."
"Skippy, you tell—" said Snorky Green generously, "the glory is yours."
"It's an invention that's got to do with a bathtub, with all bathtubs," said Skippy, with a sudden faintness of confidence before the professional agnosticism which Macnooder, the man of affairs, now assumed by crossing his legs and donning a large horn-rimmed pair of spectacles.
"The word isbathtub," said Macnooder, who not to appear too eager dug a knife from his pocket and carefully whittled at the end of his pencil.
"It's a foot regulator!"
"Aha!" said Macnooder, who didn't understand at all.
"You see, Doc, what's the matter with all the bathtubs of to-day," said Skippy, picking up courage, "your head's at one end and the faucets are at the other—and, that's an awful distance!"
"Good point!" said Macnooder, nodding.
"Now when you want to let in the cold water you've got to sit up, reach down and turn it on and that's cold and chilly and drafty as the mischief, isn't it?"
"That's a very strong point," said Macnooder, who began to see.
"Now, if you could only turn the faucets with your toes, you could lie quietly under the hot water, couldn't you?. . . But you can't—but you could if you had foot regulators. Andisn't it the simplest thing in the world to have foot regulators? Only no one has ever thought of it before?"
"Think what it would do to the bathtub industry, Doc," said Snorky, who felt the preceding explanation had failed properly to illuminate the epochal quality of the invention. "Why, Doc, we'd have 'em by the throat. We'd put every bathtub out of existence. The whole dinged system is fossilized and we'd show 'em up with the first exhibit. Do you see it, Doc? Do you get the possibilities?"
"At first sound," said Macnooder, who kept his glance on the end of his pencil, not to reveal how much his imagination had been stirred, "at first sound, it interests me strangely. Skippy,—Mr. Bedelle, your hand, and my congratulations."
"Oh, I say, Doc," said Skippy, with a lump in his throat, "you really do believe in it, don't you?"
"My boy, there are gold mines in it," said Macnooder, carefully, "the wealth of the Sultan is nothing to it, or—or it isn't worth a plugged nickel."
Skippy and Snorky exchanged glances of sudden dismay.
"It's one or the other. That's what I will find out."
"How'll you do that?" said the roommates, in a breath.
"I shall write for catalogues first. I may have to conduct a personal investigation at the patent office—and of course I must look at all possibilities. The idea is revolutionary," said Macnooder, reviving their spirits. "Mr. Bedelle, nothing can deprive you of that distinction and glory. Your fame is secure. But the bank account? Can we protect ourselves against pirating? Can the Bathtub Combine avoid in any way, shape or manner, being forced to treat with the owners of the Bedelle Foot Regulator? That's what I must carefully consider. Gentlemen, one week from to-day I promise you my answer."
"Then youwilltake it up, Doc?"
"If everything is all right we incorporate Bedelle, patent the foot regulator, organize a stock company, and I shall accept the posts of President and Treasurer, with fifty-one per cent of the stock."
"Fifty-one per cent, Doc!"
"My invariable terms. The responsibility and the control must be mine. I don't ask fifty-two per cent, or fifty-three per cent. I ask only protection. Take it or leave it."
Skippy gazed at Snorky, who pondered a long while, but Macnooder's professional manner sunk deep into their imaginations.
"You don't trust us!" said Skippy sorrowfully.
"Business is business!" said Doc, pointingto the documents he had signed. "Did you trust me?"
"I sort of expected we'd all go cahoots," said Skippy reluctantly.
"Fifty-one per cent, gentlemen, or good day," said Macnooder pompously.
"Take it," said Snorky.
Skippy drew a long breath. It had been a day of disillusions. What millions had slipped away! Truly the lot of the inventor was hard!
"Well?" said Macnooder, rising and shooting his cuffs. "Is it or is it not?"
"It is," said Skippy heavily.
"And now, gentlemen," said Macnooder briskly, "I make no promises. I shall examine the scheme ruthlessly, without sentiment or prejudice—but perhaps, likewise who knows!—Gentlemen, your hands, this moment may be historic!"
Caught by the sudden inspiration of how history might some day look back to these humble beginnings, with a common gesture they rose and clasped hands.
BEDELLE, Incorporated! John C. Bedelle, The Bathtub King! For a delicious week Skippy sailed into the future on the magic carpet of his imagination. He dreamed through the long dull hours of recitations; he dreamed when huddled in sweater he watched the scurrying of the baseball candidates; he dreamed over the prunes at breakfast and the prune whip at night, and in his soft and delicious bed he lay awake for hours planning out the disposal of his future wealth.
The week ended, as all weeks must. At precisely five o'clock in the afternoon, with that fine sense of ceremony that was his, Doc Macnooder knocked at the door and entered.
"Well!" said Snorky Green and Skippy in joyful chorus.
"Your hats and follow me!" said Macnooder in his best Dramatic Club manner.
The tone sent a chill down their backs. Silently, already prepared for the great catastrophe, they filed across the campus, to the Upper House. Not a word had been spoken.
"We will now proceed to examine the Fourth Form baths," said Macnooder, in the same lugubrious voice.
Utterly and instinctively without hope Skippy clutched his roommate's arm and stumbled down the stairs. Something was coming, something that meant the end of all! Macnooder, entering the first bathhouse, flung back the door and pointed to the bathtub.
"Mr. Bedelle, there is your answer!"
"Jerusalem, the faucets are in the middle!" said Snorky, recoiling with a gasp.
"The Bathtub Combine has us beat!" said Macnooder. "If we patented the Foot Regulator every bathtub in the country will have the spigot fastened in the middle."
"Why in Sam Hill didn't you think of that?" said Snorky, turning indignantly on the inventor. He kicked at the offending tub, scowled at Skippy and deserted on the spot.
"And this is the friend I'd have made a millionaire!" said Skippy to himself in the bitterness of his trial.
"You see, Bo?" said Macnooder, descending from his pedestal, as he perceived how the revelation had crushed the younger imagination.
"I see, Doc."
"It's no use, is it?"
"No,—damn 'em, they've got us beat!"
"Now, old sport," said Macnooder kindly, "don't mope about it. Your ideas are all right and I'm here to keep you practical. Better luck next time, but be sure and come to me."
"Thank you, Doc," said Skippy, throughwhose dimmed eyes the fatal bathtub seemed to advance like a juggernaut. He escaped and went dizzily across the Campus and sat on the steps of Memorial Hall, gazing out gloomily at the dotted recreation fields. The great Bedelle gymnasium, which but yesterday was outlined in splendor against the sky, was now cinders and dust, Fifth Avenue further off than Africa, and as for Lillian Russell—
"Looking all over for you, Skippy," said a familiar voice.
Before him stood Toots Cortrelle.
"Oh, it's you," he said heavily.
"Are you flush? I thought if you were—that quarter you know—you said—"
"I said I should remember," said Skippy, with a hollow laugh. There was just twenty cents in his pockets that an hour ago had been heavy with millions. He drew out two dimes and tendered them.
"Here's the best I can do, Toots. I'll try to get that other nickel to you to-morrow."
COMMONPLACE minds are crushed by defeat; great imaginations rise to profit. Ten days after Skippy Bedelle had seen the gilded fabric of his future greatness collapse with the failure of the Foot Regulator to revolutionize the bathtub industry the spirit of invention had risen triumphantly from the ashes of first disillusionment. After all, there were other services to render to humanity, and the mind that at the age of fifteen could have reasoned so brilliantly in theory must inevitably express itself with profit to the race and to his own individual bank account.
At first Skippy's depression had been profound, and as the sensation was new he enjoyed its sensual charm to the fullest. He discarded the jaunty cap for a slouch hat which he pulled down over his eyes; he selected the soberest of neckwear, turned up his collar, sank his fists in his pockets, and spent solitary afternoons among the ruins of the Carthage of his imagination, seated on the site of what would never be the John C. Bedelle Gymnasium. Even the spectacle of Cap Keafer knocking out a home run in the ninth inning brought him no rapturous exultation. He was akin toIvanhoe,the disinherited knight, andAthosof the brooding sorrows. The world had receded from him, and nobody cared or noticed. He was alone, misunderstood, without a friend in the world. For after what had happened he could never again feel the same towards that basest of ingrates, Snorky Green.
The evening after the collapse of the Bedelle Foot Regulator, Incorporated, there had been a short and exceedingly painful interview.
"Well, Skippy, old top," said Snorky, who was genuinely contrite and ready to make the advance, "that certainly was hard luck. I feel just as bad as—" Here he stopped before the sudden majestic indignation which confronted him.
"Green!" said Skippy, frowning.
"Oh, I say—"
"Green, when you thought I was going to be a rich man," continued Skippy icily, "there was nothing you wouldn't do for me. You fawned on me. But when I had to face defeat—at the first test—you deserted me with sneers and gibes. That is not friendship. Green, you are not capable of true friendship, and you have proved it. I shall never forget and I shall never forgive!"
"Oh, shucks, Skippy!" said Snorky. "What's the use of rubbin' it in? I'm not as bad as all that!"
"Green," said Skippy, working himself into the scene which he had rehearsed a dozen times as he had long debated whether to address the offender as Mr. Green, "Green, we will have to go on rooming together but I wish you to understand that nothing you can ever do or say will change my feelings now towards you. Nothing! Whatever communication is necessary from now on between us, will be inwriting—"
"What's that?"
"In writing," said Skippy firmly.
"Oh, well, if that's the way you're going to take it you can go to blazes!" said Snorky wrathfully. "But before you climb on your high horse, suppose you restore my red choker tie, my agate cuff buttons, my silver-rimmed fountain pen and a few pairs of fancy socks—"
"Thisis unworthy of even you," said Skippy, who rose and with a perfect social manner took the articles in question from the bureau on the south side of the room and gingerly placed them on the bureau in the western corner. "The socks are in the wash. I prefer to return them as I received them." After which he disrobed and, somewhat consoled, watched from the coverlets the indignant and bewildered Snorky Green sitting on his bedside, halfway out of his trousers, glaring at him in rage.
For a week, a miserable, lonely week, Skippy held to this irreconcilable attitude. Duringthis time he touched the bottom of depression—he even doubted himself! Would he ever invent anything again? Had it been just a flash in the pan? Was it all a false start? What had become of the imagination which had blazed up so brilliantly? Perhaps after all he was no different from the rest—just an average mind fit only for such vulgar things as banking and trade. Then one morning through the gloom clouds a sudden shaft of sunlight arrived. He had another idea!
He had been lolling deliciously in bed, disdaining to notice the first harsh summons to rise, and his mind had dwelt enviously on the brilliant figure of Doc Macnooder. After all, even Doc Macnooder had his failures. There was the matter of the Folding Toothbrush, which all Macnooder's eloquence had failed to market with Bill Appleby.
"Jingo! That certainly was a bum idea," he said to himself, somewhat comforted. "You might do something with a toothbrush, but a folding one is a joke!"
All at once he sprang out of bed and, reaching the washstand in a bound, seized the nearest tooth mug. Snorky, who, despite the present unpleasantness, still trusted his rising instincts, catapulted out of bed and arrived three seconds later at his side of the washstand, where through still foggy eyes he beheld Skippygazing at a toothbrush which he held reverently before him as a jeweler examines a named stone.
"What the deuce?"
"Dinged if I haven't got Macnooder beat a mile!" exclaimed Skippy, who in the first exhilaration of discovery had completely forgotten the correspondence acquaintanceship he had imposed.
"It's about a toothbrush!" said Snorky with great intelligence.
"You bet it's about a toothbrush." But here Skippy suddenly remembered, and the smile gave place to a frown.
"Oh, I say, Skippy! Let's call it off," said Snorky in a rush of feeling. "It was dead rotten of me and I'm doggone sorry—honest, I am—but you've rubbed it in enough."
"Very well, I forgive you and I shall try to forget," said Skippy, who also had chafed under the long silence.
"What's the great idea?" said Snorky hurriedly.
"The great idea is aSouvenirToothbrush," said Skippy proudly.
The idea did not reach Snorky immediately, but he was too diplomatic to show his disappointment, so he said humbly:
"I suppose it's because I'm a dumb-head, but why a souvenir toothbrush?"
"Why a souvenir pillow-case? Why a souvenir buttonhook or a souvenir bootjack or a footstool, necktie, lap robe, or anything souvenir?"
"All right, why?" said Snorky, who felt hurt at this assumption of intellectual superiority.
"The bootjack doesn't make the souvenir; it's the souvenir makes the bootjack, doesn't it?" said Skippy, who was thinking deeply.
Snorky had never heard of the Socratian method, but he was impressed; so not understanding, he nodded and answered:
"Aha, I see!"
"It's the thing you souvenir that's important. If you want to remember you can't remember too often."
"No-o."
"And how can you remember better than the first crack out of bed—"
"I get all that," said Snorky, acknowledging the brilliancy of the argument. "But how the dickens can you make a souvenir out of a toothbrush?"
"My boy—my boy!" said Skippy with crushing contempt. "Have you no imagination? A souvenir toothbrush! Why, easy! Make the handle in the shape of a baseball bat and put the Lawrenceville-Andover score on the back—red and black."
"Well, I'll be jiggswiggered!"
"You can make 'em in the form of a riding crop for racing sports, masts for yachtsmen, sword-blades for the army. Why, it's a cinch! You can have Lawrenceville shields on the back, Princeton colors, Yale colors. You can do anything, anything with the idea—you can have your best girl's initials, or you can have her photograph stenciled on!"
"Sure thing! Why not Mother or Auntie—'when this you see remember to use me!'" said Snorky, who feared where another flight of the imagination might transport his roommate.
"Green!" said Skippy, flaring up at this destructive levity; but before he could deliver his broadside the breakfast gong began to rock the house and simultaneously each head ducked into a waiting basin.
When Skippy during the relaxation of the morning recitations considered the Souvenir Toothbrush he was not so favorably impressed. Snorky's suggestion somehow threw a touch of ridicule over the whole proposition and Skippy, like all true imaginations, shrank from ridicule. Undoubtedly if the Souvenir Toothbrush became a fact, mothers and governesseswouldabuse its opportunities. Think of a parental eye gazing admonishingly at you from the back of a toothbrush every morning! Why, the name of Bedelle might become an execration! He saw himself pilloried among the oppressors of boykind,as unpopular as the compiler of a Latin grammar or the accursed Euclid! No, the idea was unthinkable! Skippy did not reject the Souvenir Toothbrushin toto. He bought a blank book on which he inscribed:
INVENTIONSJohn C. Bedelle1896
On the first page under the day of the month he wrote a full description, adding:
FIELD LIMITEDSuggestion—Hold until later date and patent anonymously.
Skippy then reluctantly admitted the destructive force of Snorky Green's criticism of the Souvenir Toothbrush; he admitted it, but he could not forgive him for being right. There are certain things which one does not forgive a brother, a sister, or the chum of chums.
After all, was Snorky Green worthy of that privileged and exalted position? A disturbing doubt began to creep into Skippy's imagination. He passed over the treachery in the matter of the now defunct Bedelle Foot Regulator; that might conceivably have been the fault of an inferior temperament. It was the spirit of negative criticism, the settled habit of turning into raillery the fragile first impulses of his inventive imagination, that was alarming.
"Gee! If every time I get a big idea, he'sgoing to knock it in the head, what's the use of having an imagination?" he said gloomily.
After all, could a creative temperament yoke itself to a destructive criticism without self-immolation? Immersed in these brooding forebodings, he came heavily up the Dickinson stairs to the communal room. Suddenly he stopped, amazed.
"What the deuce!"
On his bureau a flaming bit of color greeted him from the somber mass of his pendent neckties. He advanced and recognized Snorky Green's red choker tie, which was particularly dear to his young sartorial fancy. On the pin cushion lay the agate cuff buttons and the silver-rimmed fountain pen. He opened the top drawer and beheld three pair of open-work socks, red, orange and glowing green.
"Gee, how crude!" he said indignantly.
At another moment and in another mood his heart might have softened at this evident peace-offering; but this afternoon, with the new child of his imagination slain by Snorky Green's brutal wit, the whole proceeding was undeniably crude, a bribe too openly offered. He would have to return them; that was inevitable and that was of course the last thing he wished to do. He sat down at his desk, scowling horribly, and then, moved by a fitting inspiration, he seized his pen and dashed off the most frigid and properly insulting of notes.
To Arthur E. Green. Goods Returned.1 Fountain Pen.1 Pair of Agate Cuff Buttons.1 Choker Tie (red).3 Pair of Socks.Kindly acknowledge receipt,Bedelle.
The last he considered such a master stroke that, his good humor restored by the anticipation of the infuriating effect on his beloved friend, he began to whistle a triumphant strain. He made a neat package, pinned the ultimatum on it, and proceeded to the opposite bureau.
"Well, I'll be teetotally jiggswiggered," he said, astounded.
In the oval of the glass, a new photograph had appeared in the company of the three other smiling feminine beauties which Snorky Green, as a man of the world, displayed by implied right of conquest. Skippy set down his package and craned forward for a closer examination.
"Huh! Old enough to be his grandmother," he said contemptuously, staring at the new victim of Snorky Green's charms.
But at this moment, hearing a familiar step in the hall, he bounded back in time to assume a nonchalant, bored attitude as Snorky came joyfully in, exclaiming:
"Hello, old sporting life! What do you know to-day?"
"Green," said Skippy, drawing himself up and extending an elocutionary finger towardsthe bureau, "you will find something to interest you there."
He waited a moment outside in the hall until Snorky's bursting imprecation brought the needed consolation, and then tripped down the steps, seeking a calming jigger.
L'AMOUR a des raisons que la raison connait pas," say the French, who ought to know, and the first expansive sentimental affection of a boy for a chum has also its illogical quality. Now, Skippy adored Snorky and the affection was returned. He felt that Snorky would die for him, as of course he would lay down his own life for his friend, if they should ever hunt together in African jungles. He was willing to share Snorky's last dime, keep his confidences, and fight shoulder to shoulder. He admired, he respected, he loved Snorky, but for the life of him he could not see wherein Snorky Green's peculiar brand of beauty should appeal to the young feminine eye any more than his own lank frame and sharpened features. Why should Snorky's glass present four lovely and adoring feminine faces, while his own should give back only a pointed nose around which the orange freckles swarmed like flies? True, the lady-killer's wardrobe was of a magnificence which outshone his, but then socks and neckties and cuff-button jewelry are communal possessions.
Why should Snorky Green then inspire suchpassions while he passed lonely and unloved? No, certainly Snorky was not beautiful. He had a smudgy, stubby little nose. He was lop-eared and the dank yellow hair fell about his puffy eyes in straight, unrippling shocks. Yet four women (three blondes and a brunette) watched with affectionate glances the progress of his casual morning toilette. Why?
The next morning, as Skippy reluctantly rose and gazed upon the feminine galaxy waiting at the bureau that was not his, the sense of his own inferiority again smote him. Envy is the corrupting cancer of friendship. He did like Snorky. He yearned for the life-and-death devotion of a chum of chums; a sort of Damon and Pythias, D'Artagnan and Athos affair—but, while this sense of inferiority continued, the shadow was over the fair sunlit landscape of impulsive friendship. It was so, and the feeling would not down.
That evening, being alone, he stood again contemplating the evidence of Snorky Green's predatory progress among the ladies. He examined the four photographs carefully.
"They can't all be sisters," he said gloomily; besides, he knew that his roommate, more fortunate than he, had to bear but one such cross. "Danged if I can see what gets them. If that fellow's a lady charmer, I'll hire out for a matinée idol!"
On the pin cushion was a pin in the shape ofan arrow (an arrow of course suggested a transpierced heart), which Snorky wore for important ceremonies, when he donned a perpendicular collar and a white coaching tie. On the wall was a Farmington banner and on the sofa five pillows worked by loving feminine hands.
"Sisters never go to that trouble," said Skippy, secure in his knowledge of sister nature. "By the great horned spoon this can't go on. I've either got to lick the stuffin's out of him or—"
Without finishing his phrase, he went to the table, drew forth Cæsar's "Gallic Wars," and a copy of "Lorna Doone" and immediately began to concentrate. A moment later Snorky Green arrived chuckling from a foray down the hall where he had just deposited a moth ball in the lamp chimney of Beckstein, the Midnight Poler. He came in rollicking and triumphant, slamming and locking the door against a sudden reprisal. Then, seeing Skippy, he stiffened, scowled, and assumed an air of frigid dignity. Skippy, with his eye on a convenient mirror, followed his movements expectantly.
Snorky, having glared sufficiently at the unresponsive back of his roommate, planted himself in front of him and said angrily:
"Say, what in tarnation is biting you, anyhow?"
Part of the pleasure which Skippy derived from his periodic application of ostracism was in the immediate success it achieved on his roommate's impressionable temperament. At present, being in an exceedingly grouchy mood, he drew forth a pad and pencil and tendered them with a plain intimation that only thus would he receive any communications.
"What are you sore about?" said Snorky, flaring up at once. "Just because I took a crack at your old Souvenir Toothbrush? Is that it?"
Skippy drew forth a handy literal translation and ostensibly began to apply it to the baffling text.
"My lord, you act like a sick girl! You're a pleasant roommate, you are! How long are you going to sulk like this?"
Skippy began to whistle softly to himself: