THE Tennessee Shad, as has been told, was long, thin and full of bones. His imagination was chiefly occupied in initiating ideas which would be the cause of exertion in others. In the warmth of the budding season he came out of his winter cage and could be seen for long hours perched on his window sill in the Kennedy, legs pendent; like some dreamy vulture, surveying the horizon for a significant point.
There was little that escaped the Shad. For some time his curiosity had been stirred by the unusual attentions paid to Skippy Bedelle by his old side-partner, Doc Macnooder. Doc was eminently practical and if Doc devoted any part of his time to an inconsequential underformer, in the language of the day, there was something doing.
The early visits of Macnooder to Skippy's room at the time of the Foot Regulator campaign had been noted, likewise the subsequent cooling of the affection. So when after a few weeks' lapse Macnooder was again seen impelling Skippy in the direction of the Jigger Shop with a protecting arm over his shoulders, theTennessee Shad whistled softly through his teeth and said to himself:
"I wonder what new flim-flam game is on?"
Now Macnooder was distinctly a trespasser, for Macnooder belonged to the Dickinson and Skippy was of the Kennedy and, by that token, his lawful prize. The Tennessee Shad's vigilance redoubled. He began to note the air of mystery and solemnity which hung over the two roommates, their frequent whisperings and the moments of intense excitement when, with locked arms and heads close together, they drew surreptitiously away from their fellows for secret conclave. When presently Greaser Tunxton, a solitary youngster who ranked high among the polers and high markers with a curious penchant for chemistry, began to be seen in their company, the Tennessee Shad's vigilance became acute.
One night, when after hours he was returning from a midnight spread in King Lentz's room, his ear detected unmistakable signs of activity behind Skippy's door across the hall. A quarter of an hour later two stocking-clad forms stole past his open door and slowly down the treacherous stairs. The Tennessee Shad followed.
Below, the door of Greaser Tunxton opened cautiously and as cautiously closed again. A moment later the Shad, now at the keyhole,heard the window open and the sounds of a foray into the night. He calculated nicely, passed into the room and out the window and took up the trail of the three shadows moving in the general direction of Memorial Hall.
Ten minutes later the Tennessee Shad, having stalked his prey in classic Deerslayer manner, reached the farther stretches of the pond and, flat on his stomach among the high grasses, heard the following mysterious dialogue:
"How's this, Skippy?"
"Fine! Must be millions of them."
"Do you suppose they sleep?"
"We'll wake 'em up."
"Shucks! It's only bullfrogs," thought the Tennessee Shad; but at this moment perceiving the three in clear silhouette against the faint moonlight, he instantly discarded that explanation. The three wanderers into the night were clothed in helmets, from which voluminous folds of cheesecloth descended to the waists, while each had his trousers rolled up well above the knees. The conversation continued, to his growing mystification.
"They're awake, all right. I can hear them coming!"
"You're the boss, Skippy. What's the order?"
"Twenty paces apart. Greaser, you shake the bell, slowly. Snorky, you stand here, and,mind you, no slapping or moving. Everything scientific."
"All right, but get a move on. Ouch, I've got two already."
"Red leg or blue leg?"
"Blue, darn it!"
"Fine! I'll count a hundred slowly. Start up, Greaser."
The low, harsh, grating sounds of a rusty bell slowly agitated began to be heard, punctuating the droning count: "Five, six, seven!"
"For the love of Willie Keeler, what is it!" said the Shad, more and more bewildered, as he rubbed one leg against the other and shook his head to protect himself from the many insects. "It must be a secret society and this is the initiation."
"Skippy?"
"Hello!"
"The bell's no good at all."
"Twenty-nine, thirty—remember your oath."
"Say! Count a little faster; I can't hold out much longer."
"Red leg or blue?"
"Both, darn it!"
"Any difference?"
The reply was too blasphemous to be set down here.
The Tennessee Shad, too, was paying dearly the price of his curiosity; so, being convinced that he had stumbled upon a secret initiation,he decided to get some enjoyment out of the situation. Presently, trumpeting his mouth with his hands, he emitted a long, wailing sound:
"Ugh, wugh, guggle, guggle!"
"Good lord! What was that?"
"Did you hear it?"
"It's a night owl that's all; fifty-six, fifty-seven—"
"Oonah, woonah, WOO, HOO!"
"Night owls nothing; it's ghosts!"
"There ain't no ghosts, you chicken-livered—"
But at this moment the Tennessee Shad, smarting from head to foot, let out an ear-splitting screech and the three experimenters in mosquitology disappeared at top speed. The Tennessee Shad, satisfied, emerged, examined with curiosity a discarded helmet smeared with citronella-soaked cheesecloth, and picked up a rusty dinner bell. This last stuck in the crop of his imagination.
"Secret-society stuff," he said to himself as he slapped his way out of the marsh. "But why the bell? Darn mysterious, that bell. . . ."
THE result of the first investigation in the likes and dislikes of the New Jersey mosquito brought a decided difference of opinion. It was admitted (given the swollen condition of Greaser Tunxton's legs) that the insect's sense of hearing was undoubtedly defective. Snorky Green was equally emphatic in expressing his conviction that all colors were alike to it, but Skippy insisted that it was not scientific to jump to a conclusion on the basis of one experiment.
"But golly! I had forty-seven bites on the red stocking and sixty-five on the blue, and if that doesn't prove anything, I'd like to know what!"
"It proves that blue attracts them more than red, that's all. We must now try other combinations."
"It proves one thing right here," said Snorky Green, dousing his legs with the second bottle of witch hazel. "I'm through on the human-experiment game, and that's flat."
"I'm inclined to believe we should concentrate on the sense of smell," said Skippy thoughtfully. "As a matter of fact the experiment turned out as I foresaw."
"It did, eh?" said Snorky wrathfully.
Skippy retreated to the other side of the table and hurriedly announced:
"I've been talking it over with Greaser here and the problem is narrowing down. Now what we've got to figure out is, shall we make it a washing solution or something that'll stick forever?"
"Washing solution."
"Sure we could wash the socks in some sort of preparation of citronella, couldn't we?"
"That's too easy. Any one could do that."
"Exactly! That's why we must experiment further. Greaser's got some very good ideas."
"Oh! Well, bring on your stinks; I can stand them."
"You can?"
"Sure."
"You swear?"
"I swear. What's the idea, Greaser?"
Greaser Tunxton looked at him hard and thoughtfully before replying.
"You see, citronella comes out in the wash, but there are one or two other things much stronger."
"Citronella's pretty strong!" said Snorky, who began to wonder if he had promised too rashly.
"Ever heard of asafœtida?" said Skippy, with his hand on the chemical genius.
"That's the stuff you put on the furnaceat co-ed schools when you want a cut," said Snorky, who knew the story of Dink Stover's reasons for coming to Lawrenceville.
"It is quite possible," said Greaser in his smileless, scientific manner, "that, properly treated, a mixture of silk and cotton, possibly wool, will retain enough of the essential quality of asafœtida for at least a dozen washings—"
"Isn't citronella bad enough?" said Snorky, with a horrible misgiving.
"It's extremely doubtful," said Greaser, shaking his head, "but I don't want to say anything definitely before we make exhaustive experiments."
"Where?" said Snorky, shrinking. "If it's down at the pond again, good night!"
"Green!" said Skippy wrathfully.
"Bedelle to you!"
"The experiments can be conducted right here," said Greaser reassuringly.
"Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?" said Snorky, feeling a little ashamed. "Perhaps after all asa—asa—well, whatever it is, will come out in the wash, too."
"If it does," said Greaser proudly, "I've got something worse."
"Worse!" said Snorky, with a sinking heart.
"Worse!" said Skippy joyfully.
"If you put that on," said Greaser, meditating, "the socks will be better than mosquito-proof—even rattlesnakes wouldn't bite you!"
"Criminy! What is it?"
"I know what it is," said Greaser, wagging his head wisely, "but I can't pronounce it!"
Events now moved rapidly. The following morning, despite the draft which entered through three windows and swept out the door, the Roman stopped the morning recitation after five minutes of indignant commotion in the class and, making a detailed investigation, dispensed with the presence of Mr. Snorky Green, Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Mr. Greaser Tunxton (the last with incredulous chagrin) with a request to produce each individual bath record for the week.
At eight o'clock that night Snorky Green deserted the communal laboratory, bag and baggage, announcing that he was through once and for all, and sought asylum of Dennis de Brian de Boru. Finnegan, after the first whiff, barricaded the door and seized a baseball bat to repel any aggression via the transom.
At eight-thirty, the inhabitants of the second floor held an indignation meeting on the steps.
"Holy Moses! What is it?" said the Triumphant Egghead, smelling in the direction of the offending room.
"It's a dead cat."
"Smells like ripe sauerkraut and garlic!"
"No, it smells like asafœtida."
"The deuce you say! Asafœtida is a maiden's perfume to this!"
"Well, some one's dead."
"It's the Greaser, then."
"My Lord! This is awful!"
"Skippy's found a pet skunk."
"How in blazes are we going to stand it?"
"We won't."
When the odor had finally rolled down the stairs a house meeting was called and the offenders were summoned to appear. Skippy Bedelle and Greaser Tunxton responded and the house adjourned through the windows. Now it happened that the Roman was dining in Princeton that night and the conduct of discipline was in the hands of a young assistant master, lately transferred from the wilds of the Dickinson, Mr. Lorenzo Blackstone Tapping.
Tabby, as he was more affectionately known, was apt to be somewhat confused, as is natural, before an extraordinary crisis, and had made one or two lamentable blunders. In the present case, after immediately sending in a hurry call for the plumber, he departed in a panic for Foundation House, holding before him on a pair of tongs a pair of reeking football stockings which he had seized in the wash basin, while Skippy Bedelle, under strict orders, remained twenty paces to the rear and out of the wind.
Arrived before the dark and awesome, ivy-hidden portals of the Head Master's dreadabode, Mr. Tapping carefully deposited the unspeakable mess against the stone steps, stationed the rebellious Skippy under an opposite tree and entered, in a fever of excitement.
"Great heavens!" said the Doctor, starting from his chair. "Are you ill?"
"No, sir, it's not myself. That is, it's—it's the whole house; it's young Bedelle, sir. The fact is, Doctor, the situation was so serious that I—I thought I'd best come to you directly, sir."
"Try to give the details a little more calmly and coherently, Mr. Tapping," said the Doctor, retreating behind a handkerchief and studying the young assistant with a growing suspicion. He indicated his guest and added, "Professor Rootmeyer of Princeton—Mr. Tapping, one of our younger masters."
Ten minutes later Skippy, shivering under the apple tree, beheld Tabby reappear, take up the tongs gingerly and return to the house. Almost immediately the window of the Doctor's study opened with a bang and there was an iron clank in the near roadway.
"I never smelled such a smell! Is it possible?" said the Doctor, coughing. "What is it?"
"Please, sir, I don't know," said Mr. Tapping miserably.
"You don't know and you are a B. S.?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
"Well, what is your explanation, or have you any explanation of this extraordinary occurrence?"
"I think, sir, the boy is completely unbalanced."
"Bedelle! He's always been steady and well conducted."
"He's been acting queerly lately, sir, and he absolutely refuses to give any explanation. The house, sir, is quite untenantable. I—I don't think the boys can sleep there to-night."
"Where is Bedelle now?"
"He is outside, sir—waiting."
"Perhaps I had better examine into this myself," said the Doctor, frowning. "Bedelle is a good boy—a bit of a dreamer, but a good, reliable boy. Mr. Tapping, you may return to the Kennedy and quiet them. I shall be over later. Keep Bedelle waiting—outside."
"Jim," said Professor Rootmeyer, the distinguished chemist, "there are only two things in God's universe can produce a smell like that—a dead Indian and butyl mercaptan."
The Doctor immediately discarded the first hypothesis.
"Frank, you've hit it. Itisbutyl mercaptan," he said, laughing.
"Well, how did you know?"
"I remember once when I was a shaver—"
"Go on," said Professor Rootmeyer as the Doctor came to a hurried stop.
"H'm, we are living in the present," said the Doctor after a second thought.
He rose and went to the doorstep.
"Bedelle!"
"Yes, sir."
The stench began to swell with the hurried approach.
"Stop there," said the Doctor hastily, and, having had his imagination sharpened by frequent contact with the genus boy, he added with sudden inspiration: "Go round to my study window. I will speak to you from inside."
A moment later Skippy's white face appeared, framed against the night.
"Bedelle, Mr. Hopkins reports that you were dismissed from first recital this morning, for being in a condition which unfitted you for association with your fellow beings. Is that true?"
"Please, sir, it was the citronella."
"Mr. Tapping reports that the stench arising from your room has made the house untenantable. Is that true?"
"Please, sir, that was asafœtida and—"
"And butyl mercaptan; I'm quite aware of that," said the Doctor quickly, to continue the tradition of omniscience.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Bedelle, what is your explanation? Were you trying to poison any one?"
"Oh, no, sir!"
"You were not contemplating self-destruction, were you?" said the Doctor, whose curiosity led him to adopt a light coaxing manner.
"Please, sir, I was experimenting."
"Experimenting! What for?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't tell you," said Skippy defiantly. He had foreseen the test, but he was resolved to be drawn and quartered before yielding up the secret of his future millions.
"You—can't—tell—me?" said the Doctor in his pulpit sternness.
"No, sir. I've taken an oath."
"Do you realize, Bedelle, that you owe me an explanation, that if there is no explanation for this extraordinary attack on the discipline and morale of the school that I should be quite justified in requesting your immediate departure?"
"I know, sir. Yes, sir."
"And you refuse still?"
"It's an invention, sir. That's all I can tell you, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Please, Doctor, I'd like to stay in the school."
The Doctor considered. He was a just man and his sense of humor allowed him to distinguish between the vicious and the playful imagination. After long, agonizing moments for Skippy waiting at the window, he took a sudden decision.
"Bedelle?"
"Yes, sir."
"If I let you remain at Lawrenceville, will you give me a promise—that so long as you remain here, you won't attempt to invent anything else?"
"So long as I'm in the school?" said Skippy, broken-hearted.
"Absolutely. It's that or expulsion. I have four hundred tender lives to protect. Well?"
"I swear," said Skippy, with tears in his eyes.
The Doctor bit hard and said:
"Then I shall overlook this. Your record is in your favor. I shall overlook this. I have your word of honor, Bedelle. Good night."
Skippy drew a long breath and went hurriedly back to the Kennedy. But there he halted. The smell was awful and the comments which reached him through the open windows were not at all reassuring.
"I think—I think perhaps it's warm enough outside," he said, heavy-hearted.
For two more years he had solemnly sworn to refrain from inventing, and Skippy was a man of his word. No matter, there was this consolation: Mosquito-Proof Socks would some day be a reality; butyl mercaptan had proved its worth at the first test. He would devote himself to a scientific preparation. He was young. With twice ninety-two million legs tobe protected with six pairs of socks or stockings a year, he could afford to wait.
"Before I'm thirty, I'll be a millionaire," he said defiantly. "I'll own race horses and yachts and boxes at the opera and I'll marry—" Here he hesitated and the figure of Lillian Russell somehow became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night in the baseball cage.
TEN days after the dreadful fiasco of the Mosquito-Proof Socks, when a corps of experts had succeeded in removing the stench from the upper floors of the Kennedy; when certain garments had been taken out under a vigilantes committee and had been publicly interred; when the three offenders had again been permitted to resume their membership in civilized society—Snorky Green began to be alarmed at certain disquieting symptoms in the conduct of Skippy Bedelle.
"I don't like it," he said, standing before his roommate's washstand in a darkreverie. "Danged if I like the looks of things. Somethin' is certainly doing. It certainly is."
He picked up a large new nailbrush, showed it to Dennis de Brian de Boru, who had been called in consultation, and shook his head.
"Spending his money on bric-a-brac like that—and that's not all!" he said indignantly.
"Let me know the worst," said Dennis who, perched on the table tailor fashion, had been ruminating, and when Dennis de Brian de Boru remained silent, the mental wheels were grinding rapidly. "Fire away, if you want to know anything—ask me."
Snorky proceeded to lift the broken cover of the soap dish, and brought forth a cake which he tendered gingerly to Dennis for his olfactory inspection.
"What a lovely pink stink!" he exclaimed, after one sniff. "Smells like the cook on her Sunday off."
"Are you convinced?"
"I am. Skippy, the human scent-box is undoubtedly in love. Object matrimony."
"He's got it bad this time," said Snorky, remembering that they had a reputation as lady-killers to maintain.
"If you will associate with 'em, it's bound to happen," said Finnegan in his rapid fire style. "I know the symptoms. My brother Pat went maudlin, when he was just Skippy's age. Ten years of it, presents Christmas and birthdays, flowers twice a month, postage stamps and letter paper, weekly bulletins and all that sort of rot! Ten years, and then he married a girl, best friend stuff, trust you together and all that—married her a month after he met her. Think of the expense. Not for me, old top—my money goes for race horses."
"You've nothing to worry over, you wild Irishman," said Snorky, who felt a certain presumption in this lesson.
"Casting aspersions? Oh, I don't know! I may not be beautiful, but women, proud women, have sighed as I passed."
"Run away," said Snorky impatiently.
"I was just going," said Dennis with dignity. At the door he paused for a parting shot. "Hard luck, old gormandizer. There won't be so many midnight spreads for you, now. Cut down the jiggers, shut up the pantry, tighten the belt! Skippy'll need his money forotherthings. Thank the Lord the only thing he can get into of mine, is a necktie. Hard luck!"
Perhaps a little of the practical reactions had occurred to Snorky, for he flung a shoe at the diminutive Finnegan and was still in a brown study when Skippy came in.
"If he starts to wash he's in love. Bet that's why he's been so friendly," he thought, waiting developments. "I thought it was queer he didn't sulk more after the big smell!"
In fact Snorky had been considerably puzzled at his roommate's actions after the fiasco of the Mosquito-Proof Socks.
"Any mail?" said Skippy nervously.
"I don't think so."
"Are you sure?"
"Come to think about it, there might be a letter over on the table."
The Byronic melancholy vanished from Skippy's face. He sprang to the table and seized the envelope.
"Feeling better?" said Snorky, noting the beneficial results.
"Much."
"You look ten years younger."
"You go to blazes!" said Skippy, but without anger. He went to the bed and flinging back the mattress uncovered three pairs of trousers slowly hardening into that razor edge which is thesine qua nonof a man of fashion. Apparently satisfied, he next proceeded to the mirror, where, after a short inspection, he seized his brushes, dipped them into the water pitcher and laboriously began to reconstruct the perfect part that was beginning to replace the Skippy cowlick. Trousers may be brought to order in a few minutes, but to subdue a cowlick is a matter of years. Ten minutes' rigorous application of the brushes failing to produce results, he ducked into the washbasin, drove a line with the comb, slicked down the sides and applied a press, in the form of a derby, which process will subdue the most recalcitrant of cowlicks for at least two hours.
"Aha! Object matrimony?" said a squeaky voice.
Skippy looked up wrathfully to perceive the curious eyes of Dennis de Brian de Boru gazing from the transom. Both brushes went flying across the room, but Dennis knew when his presence wasde trop. The episode shook off the derby and deranged the part. Snorky watched the process of reconstruction with a meditative glance.
"Skippy, old horse, you aresospick and span. Has love really come to you?"
"You go take a run and jump," said Skippy lightly and he began to whistle a genial air.
Now if Bedelle had denied the direct accusation, Snorky would have been certain of its truth, vice versa if the answer had been broadly affirmative, Snorky would have at once dismissed the suspicion. Skippy's light,de haut en basmanner left him unconvinced. Circumstantial evidence was all he had to go on, but the evidence was strong. Skippy undeniably was a changed man.
"What day is it?" said Skippy, who had been reading over the letter.
"Wednesday, you chump."
"Three days to Saturday," said Skippy with a sigh. He went to the washstand, poured out the water and began to scrub diligently at his nails.
"Well, you ought to get them clean by that time," said Skippy facetiously.
"What's that?"
"So you are in love?" said Snorky, shifting the conversation.
"What makes you think so?"
"Go ahead, open your heart, what's a roommate for?"
"You'd be a nice one to confide in! Why not shout it in a telephone?"
"Hold up, that's a raw deal," said Snorkyrising wrathfully. "I may have weakened under that awful stink, but I kept the secret, didn't I? Didn't I stand up three hours against the whole blooming house and did they ever get a word from me about Mosquito-Proof Socks, and in the state of temper they were too? Oh, I say, come now, square deal you know!"
Skippy considered him more favorably. Besides, he remembered that by Saturday he would need to embellish his sartorial display with a few treasures from his chum's wardrobe. He sat down and took his head in his hands.
"Snorky, old fellow, you're right—I've got it bad."
"And you're going over to Princeton Saturday to meet her?" said Skippy, who saw a trail.
"Her, what her?"
"Mimi Lafontaine, of course," said Snorky with a sudden intuition.
"Her name is Tina," said Snorky tragically. "Her first name. Perhaps some day I can tell you her real name, not now."
"Rats, it is Mimi, and you're going over again to meet her at the game," said Snorky, who knew the Skippy imagination.
"So you think I'm going to Princeton," said Skippy looking at him wisely. "I am—but from there I am making a cut for New York. Get the point?"
"Oh, Tina's in New York?"
"She is." He hesitated a moment, and thenweighing his words to give full value to their dramatic significance, he added—"She is on the stage."
"You're a thundering, whooping, common-a-garden liar," said Snorky, who felt that his sympathies were being trifled with. "Where in blazes would you know an actress anyhow?"
"And you asked my confidence!" said Skippy reproachfully. "Tina and I grew up together. She ran away a year ago. It's a terrible story, terrible! She's had the devil of a life, poor little girl. Gosh, if I were only twenty-one!"
"Skippy, if you are faking it again this time," said Snorky, whose confidence was shaken by the perfect seriousness of his chum's melancholy. "If you are, dinged if I'll ever believe another word."
"See here—did I volunteer to tell you?" said Skippy, who rose with a complete injured air. "That settles it. This is all you'll ever know."
And leaving Snorky in a ferment of curiosity he went to his desk, drew out a sheet of paper and began to run his fingers through his hair.
Snorky, as a matter of fact, had hit the nail on the head, though of course it would never do to have him suspect it. Skippy did not mind confiding to him his state of mind, in fact it was absolutely necessary if he were to go on without an internal explosion to seek some sympathyand understanding. But to admit to Snorky that he had actually succumbed to Mimi the Japanese brunette, particularly when the issue was still clothed in doubt,—was unthinkable. So Skippy invented Tina.
IT had all happened the Saturday before, when for reasons of her own Miss Clara Bedelle (the reasons taking shape in the heroic figure of Turkey Reiter, captain of the eleven, and the Triumphant Egghead, premier danseur of the school) had asked Skippy to invite those heroes, as she, being already wise in protective knowledge, preferred not to show her affection too directly. Skippy, on receipt of these sisterly directions, had been in a towering rage, for it had never occurred to him that men of the world such as Turkey and the Egghead would for a moment condescend. If it had not been for the added bait of a Princeton game, he would never have found the courage. The result upset all his preconceived theories, and it was not until he found himself on the high road to Princeton, actually squeezed into a buggy between two eager and enthusiastic lords of the school that he attempted to reason it out. The attempt, however, was beyond him. If girls as such were incomprehensible, how the deuce was he, Skippy Bedelle, to conceive that such a thing as a sister, particularly his sister, could arouse any enthusiasm?
"Guess it's the grub and the game all right,"he reflected finally. "Anyhow they will let me alone, that's something."
At lunch it did seem that his wish was to be gratified and despite certain sisterly glances of reproach, he was able to secure a third helping of roast beef and a double portion of ice cream and cake, with the connivance of Miss Biggs the chaperone, while Sister and Miss Lafontaine attended to the chatter. So engrossed was he in this attempt to stock up for the long week ahead, that he completely failed to notice the comedy which was being played to the greater edification of Mr. Turkey Reiter and the obvious disconcerting of the Triumphant Egghead, who was being neglected flagrantly and openly for mysterious reasons known only to the ladies.
Skippy, therefore, was totally unprepared, as he was both shocked and terrified, suddenly to find himself at the side of Miss Mimi, with Turkey and his sister behind, while the Triumphant Egghead, not to give his tormentor any further satisfaction, was pretending to laugh uproariously at something that his companion, Miss Biggs, had just said. For five minutes Skippy was in the most complete funk of his life. His body seemed suddenly all hands and pockets and do what he would his feet would interfere as they had that awful day eight months before when he had descended into the family parlor in the first pair of long trousers.
"I think that Princeton is just the sweetest place in the world, don't you?" said Miss Lafontaine with the air of a great discovery.
"I'm preparing for Yale," said Skippy hoarsely.
"Oh, I'm so glad," said the young lady immediately, and sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, she added, "you know I'm Yale too though you mustn't give it away. I think Yale men have such strong characters, don't you? You can't help but admire them, can you?"
Skippy had no ideas upon any subject whatsoever at that moment, besides he hadn't the slightest idea what she meant. So he took out his handkerchief and then put it back suddenly, as he remembered that a nose was never blown in polite society. As Miss Lafontaine's sole object in appropriating Skippy was the reflex action on the Triumphant Egghead, it was absolutely necessary that Skippy should at least give the appearance of appreciating the privilege. Miss Mimi, therefore, decided to jump the fence of strict conventionality if the expression be permitted.
"Jack," she said, coming closer, "own up now, you are a terrible woman-hater, aren't you?"
"Damn all sisters," he muttered to himself. Then he looked up and met at the deadliest of ranges, the smiling, mischievous eyes of theJapanese brunette. Despite himself, he broke into a laugh.
"Girls do give me a pain," he said abruptly, "but for the love of Mike, I mean for heaven's sake, don't tell Sis I said that."
Miss Mimi immediately passed her hand through his arm.
"Won't you try very, very hard, Jack, to make an exception?"
He breathed hard and something warm went up his back like the warm ripple of the hot water when his body slowly immersed. If Snorky Green could see him now! Mimi hanging on his arm, Mimi's soft voice pleading with him, Mimi, just as she had done in the fictitious weeks, throwing herself at him, actually throwing herself at him! He tried to remember one of the dozen eloquent replies he had once evolved, but nothing came.
"I say, you're not a sister, are you?"
Miss Lafontaine was considerably puzzled by this but pretended that she was an only child.
"Well that makes a difference; I thought you couldn't be," said Skippy unbending a little, "you act differently."
"Oh I see," said Mimi, who had half expected a display of sentiment, "aren't you a funny man. So you don't approve of sisters?"
She had called him a man—perhaps after all his sister had not told the age of his trousers.He straightened up and answered, "Oh, I suppose they are all right—later on."
"Jack—youarea woman-hater!"
"Oh, I don't know," he said, beginning to be flattered, and he fell to wondering how he could call her Mimi, which of course was his right.
"I'll tell you a secret, but perhaps you know it already. Perhaps after all you are only making fun of me."
"Oh, I say, Mimi," he said all in a gulp and then blushed to his ears.
The young lady, noticing this, smiled to herself and continued:
"Well, if you are simply pretending, it's a very good way to get a lot of attention, but of course you know that."
"I? What? Oh, really you don't think!"
"Well, I don't know. Because of course that is what does make a man interesting. It is such a compliment when he does take notice. Now a man like Mr. Sidell who jollies every girl he meets—"
"The Egghead is a terrible fusser," said Skippy with new appreciation of his own value, "you should have seen him at the Prom."
"Did he have Cora Lantier down, the blonde girl with the big ears!"
"She was blonde but I didn't notice the ears. She was down two weeks ago."
"Oh, she was?"
Miss Lafontaine glanced backward and snuggleda little closer. Skippy began to be aware of the strangest of symptoms; at one moment he felt a rush of blood to the forehead just like the beginnings of bronchitis, the next moment his throat was swollen as though it were the mumps, yet immediately there came a weakness in his knees that could only be influenza. The warm contact of the little hand penetrated through his sleeve, the sound of her voice shut out all other sounds in his ears, and when he met her eyes his glance turned hastily away and as avidly returned.
Mimi Lafontaine at the age of nineteen knew very little of the school curriculum, but had a marked aptitude for the liberal intuitive arts.
"Mimi would flirt with a clothes horse, if you flung a pair of trousers over it," a dear friend had said of her, and on the present occasion she was deriving a good deal of pleasure from the situation. The attitude of a young lady of nineteen, about to emerge into society,vis-à-viswith a youngster sprouting out of his first long trousers, particularly when he happens to be the brother of a best friend, is a fairly obvious one. There is no excitement to be derived but a certain amount of exercise. A fisherman is necessarily a man who enjoys catching fish, and if trout are not rising to the fly, sitting on the edge of the wharf and hauling in suckers is still fishing.
At the end of the afternoon Skippy was headover heels in love. If he had had the opportunity he would have trusted her with the secret of his life's ambition—the Bathtub and the Mosquito-Proof Socks. But Miss Mimi was too busy extracting information about the Triumphant Egghead (who had countered by steadfastly devoting himself to Miss Biggs) and certain sentimental chapters in the past of her best friend in which she had had a revisionary interest. Thesesubtletiesnaturally were beyond the experience of Skippy, in fact he was quite unable to reason on anything. His heart was swollen to twice its natural size, his pulse was racing, and the next moment with the wrench of the farewell, he felt in a numb despair, the light go out of the day, and a vast sinking weight rushing him down into chill regions of loneliness.
"Say Skippy, old sporting life," said Turkey Reiter, speaking over his head to the Egghead, who was in a terrific sulk, "How do you do it?"
"Do what, Turk?"
"Why, my boy, you're the quickest worker I ever saw; I thought the Egghead knew his business, but he's a babe, a suckling to you!"
"Mimi Lafontaine is the damnedest little flirt I ever met," said the Egghead, with a slash of his whip which sent the buggy careening on two wheels.
"Hold on there!" said Turkey, grabbing the reins. "I've got to live another week. Well,Skippy, my hat's off to you, old sporting life. You've got her feeding out of your hand. . . And Mimi too, right under the Egghead's eye!"
"Oh, come off now, Turkey," said Skippy, to whom this light badinage was torture.
"Shucks!" said the Egghead, "you know her game."
"Well you played a pretty slick game yourself, old horse, but how did you enjoy Miss Biggs?"
"You go chase yourself," said the Egghead, flinging the remnants of a cream puff at the horse, which kept Turkey busy for the next five minutes.
Skippy scarcely heard. All he wanted was to have the drive over and to be alone with his memories. How bold he had been at the end when he had crushed her little hand in his! Had she understood—and just what had she meant when she had said,
"And so it's Jack and Mimi now, isn't it?"
That night at precisely 10.45 in his sixteenth year, hanging out of the second story window of the Kennedy, with a soul above mosquitoes, Skippy Bedelle discovered the moon.
Forty-eight hours later, Skippy suddenly realized that the hot and cold symptoms, the loss of appetite, the inability to concentrate his mind on either "The Count of Monte Cristo" or "Lorna Doone," the hardness of his bed,the length of the day were not due to either German measles or the grippe. He was suffering from something that neither Dr. Johnny's pink pills, nor his white ones nor the big black ones could alleviate. He was in love, genuinely, utterly, hopelessly in love.